Category: Writing

Plot Holes (Part III)

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With everyone buzzing around Plot Hole articles (Parts I and II) it was pointed out that I missed a comment from Secretly_Samus, author of Shannon on Writing and Rewriting, on Part I. Secretly_Samus writes:

“This [Plot Holes Part I] makes me…ponder the question, how do you know when you have a plot hole?”

I apologise for the delay, but to help everyone who wonders if they have a plot hole, “The Pesky Plot Hole Questionnaire” can be a lot of help.

So don’t stress yourself too much over it, but if you’re worried about possibly having a plot hole on your hands, try asking yourself some of these questions (both from the original questionnaire on Freelance and Fiction and some I’ve added myself):

  1. Do your characters overlook obvious solutions to their problems? (e.g. the heroine forgets to use her incredible knowledge of karate when she’s attacked.)
  2. Do your villains conveniently overlook or pooh-pooh the one flaw that could let the hero escape?
  3. Does the cavalry arrive more quickly than is physically possible? (Your character took three days to cross the mountains. She gets thrown in jail. Her sidekick, who didn’t start the journey until learning of her predicament, is there springing her out the next day.)
  4. Are people a little too willing to help the heroes? (Or a little too unwilling?)
  5. Do you tell reader that the hero’s plan was brilliant but refuse to actually reveal how he/she pulled it off? (Skipping past the daring action can be a huge cop-out.)
  6. Do your heroes recover from physical trauma much too quickly? (Recovery times may vary greatly due to fantasy potions and sci-fi gadgets, but those elements need to be set up well in advance.)
  7. Do your heroes recover from emotional trauma too quickly? (We want to empathize with the     protagonists, and that can be hard when we’re still grieving over a killed-off character and the hero is running around like nothing happened.)
  8. Does the hero/heroine go ALONE to the one place where the villain will surely find him/her?
  9. Does a problem arise out of nowhere just to spur the plot along?
  10. Have you broken the rules of your universe to get out of a dead-end/move the plot along? (Ok, so people in your fantasy novel can fly, but not higher than 300 ft….except your Main Character when they need to…)

If anyone can think of others, please feel free to comment below/message me to add them.

All of a sudden, he was suddenly there

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Please excuse the delay in blog posts, I’m currently recovering from some nasty bug. Now that I am once again able to sit at a computer, we return to your regularly scheduled blog posts.

Today’s question:

“Somewhere I heard that you should never use “suddenly” or “all of a sudden” in writing… I was just wondering if this was true or not.”

Now, before we start, it’s always important to remember that “never” is an abused word when it comes to writing tips. There are certain things that can make your writing weaker–such as over using “to be” verbs, or adverbs, or…–but it’s just as much of a problem if you hinder your writing by avoiding things like “to be” verbs or adverbs at all cost. Advice that begins with the word “never” should always be taken with a grain of salt. Or, as my friend likes to joke, “Never take advice that begins with the word ‘never’.”

That said, I don’t believe trying to stay away from using “suddenly” “immediately” “all of a sudden” etc. in your writing is a bad idea. Beyond the fact that it sometimes falls into the category of unnecessary words, using “suddenly” and its partners often has the exact opposite effect of what you want it to in writing. It makes the action seem less, well, sudden.

This comes down to one of the biggest problems about writing action scenes. Where in a movie or the like you’re able to control the pacing (wait just another second and then *bam* Monster is there out of nowhere) each reader reads at their own pace. It’s possible that they’ll read slowly enough there seems to be little tension, or have to do something and set the book down, or get distracted, or any other number of things that you can’t control for as an author.

So how, then, are we supposed to get that same jump-through-yourself moment you have in the movie? Use “suddenly” right? That’s what it means after all, all of a sudden. “Suddenly the monster appeared.” It makes sense.

Counterintuitively, however, putting in another word makes the entire action less sudden to a reader.

Often when editing, I’ll put in the suggestion to keep sentences short in high action scenes. You can’t control much about the pacing as far as how your readers read a scene, but sentence length and paragraph breaks are a good way of speeding up and slowing down action. The shorter you keep a sentence the more immediate the action is. For example: “He ran.” Two words, the reader knows exactly what’s happening and is on to the next piece of information. Make it longer, however–“He began to run”–means it’s going to take the reader longer to make it through one action. The longer it takes to read something, the slower the action feels. The same goes for breaks. When reading, a comma is a generally a quick pause in the reader’s mind. A period is a full stop. (Hopefully how you read the past two sentences served as a good example for me). Commas blur things together. Periods break them apart. Therefore:

“She looked around, and then the monster was there.”

Seems to move more slowly than.

“She looked around. The monster was there.”

The same goes for using “suddenly” “all of a sudden” etc. “The monster was there” takes four words to get us from point A to point B. “All of a sudden, the monster was there” takes double that (and has a natural pause in reading it with the comma).

By writing that the action is sudden, we have successfully made the action that much less sudden in the pacing of the scene.

As with all of my other advice, you shouldn’t take this tip as gospel law. If “suddenly” makes a sentence flow more smoothly, use it. If it seems entirely necessary, use it. It is just one more piece of advice telling you to look carefully when you feel the need to point out something is sudden. Don’t hinder your writing trying to stick to “Never do X, Y, and Z” rules, but always consider how you can best serve your writing. If that’s by using an adverb or “was” or “all of a sudden” by all means use it. But, if there’s a better, stronger way to say what you mean, use that.

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Info Dumps

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In a recent blog post, I briefly touched on the topic of Info Dumps, that is, a long section of text that gives a ton of back story all at once. In that post I was suggesting to look at chopping down info dumps as a way to decrease the word count of an overly long novel. Now, since then, I have gotten the question:

“Could you elaborate on how to turn info-dumping into story-telling?”

It’s a good question. After all, in any story there is going to be background information a reader needs to know. This is especially true in stories set in other worlds (be them fantasy, sci fi, alternate universes…) where the reader can’t know everything already (who’s in charge? how do they live? what is the weather like?) but it also happens in modern-day stories. Perhaps the majority of your readers will understand it being cold in winter, but who is your character? Who are their parents? How did they end up doing what they do? Depending on the story, all of that could be important. So how do you get all of that in without falling into an info dump?

1. Figure out if the information is actually important. As I pointed out in my earlier article, we authors tend to know the entire history of a character/world (or at least we should since it helps in writing a story). Perhaps you even know what the character’s favorite color is and what time they get up for work in the morning (depending how in depth your planning is and if you’ve filled out character questionnaires). All of that is important to you as a writer, as who your character is shapes a story. All of that might not be important to the reader, however.

Did your character have a pet they really loved as a child? All right. Does that pet come up in the story? Is it still alive and mentioned? Does the character not want another pet because of its death? Did it’s death strongly influence how the character is acting now? If so, you can bring it up. Does the pet never show up? Did its death not really affect the character at this point? If so, it might be an interesting bit of information to you, but it probably doesn’t need to be in the story.

2. Figure out if the important information needs to be known now. Perhaps the aforementioned pet is going to be important later in the story (it turns out that the mild-mannered pet your character’s had for 14 years can actually talk and will lead them into Never-Never Land) do you have to get all of the information about the pet innow? Of course you always want to mention important things before you actually need them in a story (otherwise you risk sounding something like, “Oh no, what’s that sound? I can’t go outside for whatever reason, so I’m going to send the dog I’ve never mentioned before but had for years! That’s totally not a cop out!”) but you don’t generally have to put in everything all at once. In one scene you can mention the pet. A couple scenes later your character can say something about how long the pet’s been around. You probably don’t need to give a long paragraph of all the information at once.

3. Figure out other ways to get the information in. The end of point 2 touched on this a little. Just like spreading information out, information doesn’t always need to be given in a chunk of narrative. Rather than starting a story:

“Jennifer was an average looking 17-year-old girl with blonde hair and brown eyes who went to school at Centerville High, the school she had been at for the past three years with her best friend Maya…”

You can work all that information in throughout the story. Even in the first chapter if you need it there.

“Jennifer pulled up to Centerville High and sighed. She’d already suffered through three years of the place, but obviously that wasn’t enough….

“Her best friend, Maya, ran up to her, ‘Happy Birthday! How’s it feel to be 17?’…

“Jennifer tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder…”

And so on and so on. All of the information makes it in, it just isn’t all one large chunk.

4. Don’t rely on narrative. Narrative is meant to tell people things, so it’s completely understandable that it’s easy to fall into an info dump when you’re using a lot of it. You’re talking about the Main Character’s job, and, Oh! How did they get the job? You should probably put that in…but if you do that, you really should talk about college…and…and…

Dialogue is a good way to stop yourself from info dumping if you’re finding it a problem, since it feels more awkward to do (people don’t generally give their entire back story in one long monologue when meeting someone–except perhaps Bond villains). But even with dialogue, you still have to be careful. Good dialogue sounds natural, trying to force information in doesn’t make for any better dialogue than it would narrative.

Try to say away from “As you know, Bob”s (“It’s been 11 years since we last talked, Bob, as you know. So why I’m saying so makes no sense, but I thought I’d say it anyway” “Indeed, I’m glad, after 11 years, we’ve been able to meet in San Jose, as you know, a town on the coast of California…”) and don’t force lead in questions (“Hey, Tony, how long have you had that dog?” *End of what can fit in a plausible answer* “Oh yeah? Well where did you get it?” “It really is special to you, isn’t it?”) It sometimes takes practice, but you definitely shouldn’t feel like a character is interviewing another to get necessary information in (Tip: Remember you can space it out. You don’t need to get everything in all at once).

5. Trust your readers not to be idiots. This could be joined with the first point, but personally, after years of editing, I think it bears repeating. You definitely don’t want to lose readers, but also trust that people reading your book tend to have a basic level of intelligence. If there’s something important put the information in, but don’t feel the need go too far in depth, especially if it’s something the reader is likely familiar with.

For example, perhaps not everyone has a bed, or has slept in a bed, but it is likely that the vast, vast majority of people reading your book will at least be aware of the basic concept. You do not, therefore, have to give a ton of information about it (“The bed has been made five years ago out of panels of wood that had been nailed together to make a frame, with slats between them and a mattress placed on top…”)

You can also tend to trust most of your readers to be able to draw some conclusions without spelling it out. “Jennifer walked to class as the first bell rang” will let people know that Jennifer is probably a student. “The teacher added a final 4 at the end of the equation before turning around” will tell people that Jennifer’s probably in math class (or at least a science class). Bits of detail that come naturally in a scene can serve just as well to get information in, you just have to trust your reader not to need things spelled out.

“Intensive Purposes”

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Ok, I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t always gotten sayings right. Homophones, similar words, it’s easy enough to get a phrase wrong. Some are so common, it’s likely you might not realize they aren’t the actual saying. Here’s a few I’ve recently cleared up in my editing:

(For the purposes of this article, the incorrect phrase will be bolded with its intended meaning following. The proper saying will be bolded and underlined in the paragraph following)

– Intensive Purposes. (Meaning: “For every functional purpose; in every practical sense; in every important respect; practically speaking.”)   The one I saw this morning editing, and what sparked this blog post. I actually thought this was the saying myself up until a couple of years ago when I was corrected. It makes sense, “for all intensive purposes…” the purposes are important, intense…but no. The correct form is Intents and Purposes. So why isn’t intensive purposes correct? Because the saying comes from a 16th century English law, originally “to all intents, constructions, and purposes.” Shortened to “intents and purposes” it’s now easily mistaken for “intensive purposes”

– Per Say. (Meaning: As such; as one would expect from the name). A mistake that’s easy to understand (after all, it basically just comes out and says “as it says”, right?) the saying is actually Per Se. Why? Because it’s Latin. Se might not be an English word, but in Latin, “se” means “itself” (or himself or herself depending, but we’ll just stick with “itself”). Therefore, per se means “by itself”.

– Wallah. (Meaning: There it is, ta-da, presto). Another misunderstanding of a foreign word. When people write “Wallah!” they generally are trying to write what they’ve heard “Voila!” (a French word coming from the words vois [to look] and la [there or it]) as. While it might more technically come out to “look there!” it’s generally used (in France and in the English-speaking world) as “Here it is!” or “Ta da!” (for example “You add some ribbon, and voila! A new dress!”)

As added incentive to use the proper spelling, “Wallah” is itself a word meaning: “One employed in a particular occupation or activity” (coming from a Hindi word [vala] meaning “pertaining to or connected with”). Not what I think people mean when they say something along the lines of “Wallah! A new dress!”

– Say “I”. (Meaning: I agree). Perhaps it isn’t a foreign language misunderstanding, but this one is a replacing a common English word with one a little more obscure. Aye. Say “I” generally makes sense in the context (If you consider it something along the lines of: “If you agree, volunteer yourself.”) but “Say ‘Aye’”  makes even more sense, quite literally meaning “yes“. So “say ‘aye’ ” is asking people to say yes to a vote.

– Bunker Down. (Meaning: to take shelter; to assume a defensive position to resist difficulties). This mistake comes from a combination of places, I think. 1) taking the military phrase “bunk down” (meaning to go to bed) and 2) misunderstanding the proper phrase Hunker Down. While it might make sense to have “bunker down” as an extension of “bunking down” a bunker generally is “a bin or tank especially for fuel storage, as on a ship” or “an underground fortification” While it is possible to make “bunker” a verb, the verb forms are bunkered, bunkering, and bunkers, never just bunker. Hunker, on the other hand, means “To squat close to the ground”, “To take shelter, settle in, or hide out”, or “To hold stubbornly to a position” Bunker might make sense if you ignore the noun/verb problem, but hunker undoubtedly makes more sense.

– Reek Havoc. (Meaning: to cause a lot of trouble or damage). The “havoc” part of this saying doesn’t need much explanation. After all, havoc means: “wide and general destruction : devastation”. So, since you have the destruction part of “cause a lot of damage” all you need is the “a lot”. Reek means “to give off or become permeated with a strong or offensive odor” so, metaphorically, it could make sense. Someone who “reeks charm” gives off a lot of charm, so someone who “reeks havoc” causes a lot of destruction. The saying, however is Wreak Havoc , which makes slightly more sense with one of the meanings of “wreak” being to “inflict or take vengeance”. Rather than giving off havoc (“reeking” havoc) someone is inflicting havoc (wreaking havoc).

– Hone In. (Meaning:Directing yourself towards/zooming in on a target). Like the others, hone in generally makes sense. Meaning “to sharpen” or “to perfect” it’s possible to understand hone in as sharpening your direction or sight towards a target. The correct saying, however, is Home In. Coming from the idea of homing pigeons which were commonly used in the 19th Century to deliver messages, home in now covers anything that’s directing itself towards a target (such as missiles). So HOMing pidgeons=HOME in.

Of course, this might be starting to fall under the “popular use changes the lexicon” phenomenon. With enough people using this saying incorrectly, it’s possible it will start being accepted as “hone in” (even if that’s not the original saying).

– Maul It Over. (Meaning: take your time to think about something). One of the funnier mistakes I’ve found, I’m sure it comes from “maul” sounding similar to “mull”. Of course, a maul is a heavy hammer and to maul is to beat, bruise, mangle, or handle roughly. While I suppose it’s possible to maul a thought, people generally are looking for the slightly less violent Mull It Over. While interestingly enough, to mull something can mean to pulverize it, mull over a thought is using mull’s second meaning: “to consider at length : ponder” You are considering a thought at great length, not beating it up.

– Mute Point. (Meaning: a point that has been rendered irrelevant). While this “mute point” might have originally meant “[a point that is] to be definitively determined by an assembly of the people” it currently means (at least in the US) that the point is irrelevant to whatever is happening. And that’s why mute makes sense, yes? Someone who is mute can’t talk, you don’t need to talk about that point, wallah (cough, voila) you have a mute point. Properly, however a “mute point” is actually a Moot Point While the definition of “moot” might not help explain why it’s “moot” not “mute” (moot meaning “subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty”) a moot point comes from a law student practice (starting in the 16th century) of participating in “moot cases”. Using these practice or hypothetical cases, the students could discuss hypothetical case law. Thus, a point in a moot case was hypothetical, and often not relevant to actual cases, bringing us Moot Points.

– Squash Their Hope. (Meaning: Kill someone’s hope; stop someone from hoping something will happen). This mistake may make the most sense to me. You’re trying to kill someone’s hope. If you squash a bug, you kill it. Ergo “Squash their hope” makes sense. Though a valid conclusion, the saying is actually Quash Their Hope. Perhaps a little more obscure (but two hundred years older than the word “squash”) quash means “to make void, annul, crush.” So, while “squash” might be the same sort of idea (crushing something) quash brings along all sorts of other fun meanings. (Not only are you crushing someone’s hope, you’re defeating it forcibly.)

– Ripe with Conflict. (Meaning: Conflict abounds). Ripe makes some sense here. Something that is “ripe with conflict” means there’s a lot of conflict going on. Ripe fruit means it’s really full and ready to eat. It doesn’t completely make sense, but who says idioms have to? Well, idioms don’t, but the proper saying (Rife with conflict) makes just a little more sense. You see, “rife” means: “plentiful” or “abundant”. So something “rife with conflict” is abundant with conflict. Makes just a little more sense than “ripe”.

The main problem with these misunderstood sayings is, as I’ve pointed out, most generally make sense if you don’t think about them too much (you can even make an argument for some going both ways, as I know since my fiance and I spent the better part of a meal debating “hone in” and “bunker down” when I originally talked about writing this article). As long as a saying generally makes sense, people don’t tend to think about them too much. After all, someone might tell you to “take a knee”. If you aren’t a sports person, it might not make sense why, as Urban Dictionary puts it, that means “taking a temporary break from an activity” but you can come up with some reason for it (kneeling would be taking a break…) If you heard the saying a few times as “take a T” you could likewise more than likely come up with a reason for it (T…it’s a sports metaphor…Take a timeout? That works).

Misusing several sayings isn’t about not understanding the words, it’s about not hearing something correctly, and coming up with something that generally makes sense. Idioms are, after all, figurative. They only generally have to make sense.

Just, generally, the actual saying has a reason it’s the way it is, and thus makes a little more sense than its alternatives.

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The Unneeded Words

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Recently, I talked about how long novels (generally over 120,000 words) can have problems getting published.

Beyond all of the generally valid reasons publishers may have for saying away from long novels for business reasons, there is the added fact that many long novels could do with a harsh editing before publishing–something the publishers likely don’t want to spend their time doing.

As I said before, if a story demands for a long book, and the 200,000+ length is nearly entirely action-packed or, at least, interesting, there’s no problem with it. If the story drags, however, you have more of a problem. Even if the writing isn’t quite up to purple prose levels, there are very few reasons to be wordy in most forms of creative writing.

And so, if you’re trying to cut down on your word count, keep some of these things in mind:

1. Unnecessary Scenes. Not every scene you write is necessary to your plot. There might be a cute date night or someone running into an old friend that gives you some fun banter, but while reading the story…it does nothing to advance the plot. Unless a scene serves a purpose, it sadly might be better to cut it–especially in a long book.

– Is the scene necessary to the plot?
– Does it show us something about a character that hasn’t been shown before?
– Does it have necessary background information that has to come out now (hopefully not in an info dump [see below])?

If not, seriously consider cutting it. If you can’t bear to see the conversation go, you can always save it elsewhere (I have folders for each project on my laptop with outlines, manuscripts, and a document with all the cut scenes that had to go but I still love–most just because the dialogue amuses me).

This likewise goes for laundry lists of actions. It’s perfectly allowable to have time jumps in novels. The characters get in their car, and then, scene break, they pull up to their destination. You don’t need pages of them talking about nothing in the car, playing the license plate game, explaining how they’re changing their clothes, brushing their teeth somewhere…unless it’s somehow important, you can time jump.

2. Info Dumps. For those not wanting to click over to Wikipedia, an info dump is a long section of text that gives a bunch of back story all at once. Worst thing about info dumps? They’re often unneeded (or at least parts of it are). While we authors do (or at least should) know the entire history of a character (where they grew up, how long they’ve been in a job, who their parents are, why they don’t like so-and-so) it may or may not be important to the plot. An info dump slows down the action (Oh no! It’s the villain! Looks like the Main Character’s (MC) is really going to have to run for it…oh, five pages about how the villain became a villain and how he doesn’t like the MC…what was going on again?) and more than likely, it isn’t necessary.

Pick out the important bits (do we need to know the villain was abused as a child? Does that come up later? Do we need to know he went to Villain University?) and then find a way to weave that information in later. While hopefully your weaving it in doesn’t surface as an “As you know, Bob” even that is preferrable, in my personal opinion, to an info dump. “As you know, Bob”s will likely take up less space (with the unnecessary parts already clipped) and keep the action moving.

3. Too much description. Now, description is good. As I’ve said before, it’s a sad fact, but readers don’t see what’s happening in our heads while we’re writing. Without description it’s either just a bunch of people moving around empty spaces, or worse, floating dialogue. What you don’t need is every last detail in a room (see my comment about skipping those three pages of description about that tree in Return of the King).

Like everything in writing, how much description to use is a fine balance. Tell me the MC is in a classroom. You can say there’s a whiteboard, tables, a podium…whatever you see. You don’t, however, need to spend a page giving every last detail, especially if it’s not important. Is the exact pattern of the carpet going to come up later? Do we need to know how many posters are up and what each is of? If not, consider cutting back a bit–or at least not doing it all at once.

Like an info dump for exposition, description dumps aren’t good. Maybe the pattern of the carpet will be important. Can that come up later? Say a little while later the character looks down at their feet because they’re bored. They can start counting how many stars are across the floor? That way you get the pattern in without, “The room was large with X number of tables. Whiteboard took up one wall, there were 7 posters on the others. In the back… The carpet was… Three windows faced east… yada yada yada.”

4. Wordy phrasing. While not everything has to be in its most succinct form, it’s possible to cut down on your word count and make your writing/imagery stronger a lot of the time by rephrasing things. For example:

“The sheets were soaked through, made a squishing sound when Sam moved.”

Not awful, and it’s good to get senses involved in a scene (too often people forget smell and sound for sight when writing). But I would edit it like this:

“The sheets were soaked, squished when Sam moved.”

Squishing would also work, but since squish is an onomatopoeia, “squished” gives me the same sound as “made a squishing sound” You have the same effect, and give a stronger feeling without all the words couching the sound. Now the sentence has gone from 12 words to 8 words. Chopping out 4 words at a time in a 100,000 word novel can add up quickly.

5. Redundancy. Has it been said before? Cut it. No matter how important a fact is, repeating it over and over isn’t just space consuming, it gets annoying.

“All the same, she was happy to be there.”
Two paragraphs later.
“Happy to be there, she…”
A paragraph later.
“She really was happy to be there.”

We get it, we get it, she’s happy to be there. If a point is very important, maybe say it twice, but more likely than not, the reader will get it after one time. That means you can take out at least 11 words there (“Happy to be there” and “She really was…”) Again, that adds up.

This likewise goes with scenes that are redundant. Did your MC already talk about how he really wishes he could go home? Maybe you need to restate that later, but you don’t need to spend multiple scenes with the character talking about the same thing. Especially not if it is something the character is complaining about. A lot of complaining, whining, or angsting gets old quickly. Namely because a character is continuously complaining about something, but doing nothing to fix it. The plot doesn’t move forward and the character seems one-note.

6. Unneeded Words. And, last but not least, what this blog is titled after–all those little words that sneak in that really don’t need to be there. I believe, so far this year, I have yet to return an edited manuscript that isn’t at least 1,000 words shorter than when I got it (even with adding in needed words/sentences). Even without the other things on this list, there always tends to be unnecessary words.

Now there are plenty of words that can be unnecessary depending on context, but the three I find myself deleting the most are “up”, “very”, and “that”.

Now, if you have someone look up, yes you need up, but often I find “She stood up” or “She raised her hand up” For the first, there isn’t much difference between “She stood” and “She stood up” Up is contributing nothing. For the second, raising implies “up” You don’t “raise your hand down” thus you don’t need to specify.

“Very” is a modifier that “very” often gets abuse. I know I use it all the time (you can probably find plenty of “very”s in this blog). Mostly, though, “very”s get cut before adverbs/adjectives in my editing.

“He ran very quickly.”
“Her singing was very beautiful.”

Very can bog the sentence down, and they change “very” little. It’s still possible to picture someone running quickly or singing beautiful without modifying it with “very”

As for “that” I have a bit of a vendetta, I admit. Lets look at some examples:

“I hope that I don’t fall.”
“It was comforting knowing that she wasn’t alone.”
“He couldn’t believe that he had been there so long.”

There’s nothing technically wrong with those sentences, but let’s get rid of those “that”s:

“I hope I don’t fall.”
“It was comforting knowing she wasn’t alone.”
“He couldn’t believe he had been there so long.”

Have the sentences lost any of their meaning by taking out “that”? Not really.

So, depending on how often you use unneeded “up”s, “very”s, or “that”s in sentences, you can cut your word count down substantially just by taking out words that don’t serve a purpose.

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Wy I Hayt Fonetik Axsents

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All right. Be honest, how long did it take you to figure out the title? Did you even bother? All right, if you did, what is easier for you to read, that title or “Why I hate phonetic accents”?

Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that the English language makes little sense. It’s a Germanic language that was morphed by Anglo-Saxons, too far away to remember original German, adapted by the French during the Norman Conquest, and then had a thousand years to go through a vowel shift, changes, and added words (it’s reported Shakespeare alone invented 1,700 now common English words). Standardized spellings weren’t common for long after the Elizabethans (after all, Noah Webster decided to standardize “American” spellings in 1780) and many grammatical rules have come and gone, made by people often referred to as “pedantic” (split infinitives were only classified as “wrong” in the 20th century by scholars who more than likely believed English should follow Latin grammatical rules [where it’s quite literally impossible to split infinitives]). So why isn’t “phonetic” spelt “fonetik”? Because it comes from a Greek root, transcribed from the Greek Alphabet as ‘ph’ in the Latin alphabet, and it’s been that way since.

So, all of it is made up. So why can’t we make sure our character’s accents come out properly by having one say “dahlin'” one “dahrling” and one “derlin'”? The same reason people standardized language in the first place. It’s harder to understand. 

Truly, language as a whole is made up, if you want to argue it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s purpose is ultimately to have one person understand another. That vastly increases when you’re a writer. If you want to write something out phonetically as you understand it for your own notes, it doesn’t matter. If you’re expecting people to understand you in a novel/short story/article you’ve written, eet prabalee shudent b ritten liek dis.

Furthermore, how an accent sounds to you and how it sounds to someone else can be two very different things. Think of a British accent. How would someone with a British accent say “Really” to you? Reelee? Realeh? Rehleh?

Does it change if they’re speaking with a Kightsbridge Accent? London Accent? RP Accent? Cockney Accent? So now, not only is the phonetic spelling subjective, it can also be insulting if you don’t actually speak with that accent. Personally, I’d think I [in DC] say “really” something like “reelee” but I don’t speak with British accent. How do I know what sounds correct to someone from [insert place character is from]? After all, I’ve never heard someone say “pip, pip, cheerio” even though that’s supposedly British from what TV tells me. If you suddenly try to make your Irish character sound like the Lucky Charms Leprechaun saying top o’ the mornin’ to ya everywhere, you risk people considering you ignorant and/or insulting.

So is there any reason to write out an accent? In my opinion, no. In a novel I recently edited, there was an Irish character speaking with the thickest phonetically spelled attempted-accent I have ever seen (even sounding it out it didn’t sound Irish to me). Eventually I gave up trying to read what that character was saying (reading shouldn’t be that difficult in my opinion), leaving a note along the lines of “please, please, please don’t do this” but I do still remember one perfect example of the confusion spelling things out phonetically can cause.

“Fairreh”

Any guesses on that one? Perhaps some context, unphoneticized:

“Look, a fairreh!”

What I heard saying it? Fairy. It was a fantasy novel, so I thought, all right, fairies are showing up.

Too bad the author meant “Fire”

Just a small difference in the tone of the scene there.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t throw in small changes like “gonna” or “haveta'” if you feel the need to (e.g. “Tommy! Why haven’t you taken the trash out?” “Ah….I was gonna.”) but I highly, highly suggest staying away from trying to show your character’s accent bi mayking ehveree wurd fonetik.

But then, how do you show someone’s accent if you don’t spell it out?

I’d suggest some less intrusive (easier to read) ways:

1.  “He said with an X accent.” It’s simple, but showing accents in writing might be best suited with simple mentions. There are many ways to get it across in the same way:

“Hi,” he said with an Irish accent.

“Hi.”
She smiled at his lilting accent. It made even “hi” sound magical.

“Hi,” he said.
“Oh, that’s an interesting accent. Where are you from?”
“Ireland.”

“Hi,” he said, noticing how much his accent seemed out-of-place in the new school.

They all let you say he has an accent without  obscuring the actual words and making it hard to read.

2. Use speech patterns to show differences, not phonetics. Again, this is another one you have to be careful about not being insulting, but people from different areas don’t only have different accents, they use different grammar. Where I say, “I was going to go…” My great-uncle in West Virginia says, “I was fixin’ to go…” Where most people I’ve met say, “Turn off the light.” My college roommate from Brooklyn used to say, “Shut the light.” Don’t overdo it with regional slang (especially when you aren’t familiar with the region) since you’ll be in danger of going back to that “insulting” thing, but it tends to be a better way to show accents than, “I whas goeing too goe…” and “I whus fixen ta goh…”

3. If necessary, use phonetic spellings tastefully. As I said above, if your character doesn’t say “going to” properly, it might be all right to put “gonna” It’s a generally well-known version, and “I was gonna go…” would more than likely make sense to the bulk of your readers. Same with fixin’. Putting “fixing” just wouldn’t sound right in my head for “I was fixin'” Without the ‘g’ though, it’s still possible to generally understand what is being said. “I was fixin'” isn’t quite the same as “I whus fixen” The average reader will be able to read small changes like that easily. It’s when you start making people sound out every word that it gets tiring.

Now, can people write out phonetic accents well? I’m sure they can. Should they? In my personal opinion, no. Of course, that’s my personal opinion. As with everything else on this blog, people can take or leave what I say. They are all just suggestions after all. But, as I see it, anything that makes your writing difficult to understand isn’t generally good for it. After all, we standardized the language to be understood. And, as writers, it is our job to use language well.

How to Write When You Just Don’t Feel Like Writing

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Hope Daylight Savings hasn’t screwed anyone up too much for those in places that observe it (like DC sadly…) So, for while all of us in a sleep-lacking daze, today’s post on how to write even when we may not feel like it.

For the most part, I am pretty lucky when it comes to avoiding writer’s block. I have enough ideas in my head at any one point I can jump back and forth between works when I get stuck on one or another. What does hit me, however, are times when I just don’t feel like writing. Now, these generally coincide with times I really don’t feel like doing anything, but working a full-time job along with freelancing and attempting to have a social life doesn’t leave me with a lot of time to both be able to not do anything for long stretches and be able to get some writing done (maybe when I’m a best-selling author with a 7-book deal, but for now…)

And so, that leads to a sad fact: Write even when you don’t feel like writing, or don’t write at all. Since I don’t see the latter as much of an option, that means I have to find ways to write even when I don’t feel like it.

Some of you might be lucky and have time so that you only have to write when inspiration takes you (as I used to be back as a student a while underemployed), but for the rest who are trying to juggle work, school, a family, loved ones, friends, sports, hobbies, and everything else you might have to do in your already busy life, here are some of my tips to getting past that “I just don’t wanna” feeling:

1. Work on something else. This is my big one. Even if you don’t have multiple novels going at once, it’s possible to get past a block on one story by working on something completely different for at least a little bit. You can start a piece of flash fiction, which is easily completed in one sitting. You can toy around with an idea you had a while ago (just put some characters down and see where it goes for a couple of pages). You can even write a “fan” fic of your own larger novel. Always want your characters to go to Italy but there’s no way that would work in your story? Send them now and chalk that writing up to character building.

2. Word Sprints. What is a word sprint, you ask? Obviously you’ve never been on the NaNoWriMo Forums. Word sprints are timed writing exercises where you do your best to write anything and everything you can think of in 1, 5, 10… minutes. You try to reach personal goals (100 words in 2 minutes) or can add a little more motivation by finding someone to race against (in person or online) or using a program like “Write or Die” where, depending what setting you put it on, after a certain time frame (5, 10, 20 seconds) of not writing, the program will have a pop up reminding you to keep writing, set off a rather unpleasant siren that won’t stop until you keep writing, or (on kamikaze mode) begin un-typing everything you’ve written.

3. Do something “avant garde”. Generally write in third person past tense? Write in first person present. Have a character pop up that has medium awareness or breaks the fourth wall. Throw yourself into the story. You might end up deleting the entire section, but that’s fine. Not everything you write has to be perfect and make it into the final (or even second) draft. It can give you a jump-start to get you back into writing in general just because it’s so different from what you’re used to.

4. Reward System. Ok, maybe you don’t want to eat a cookie for every word you write (unless you’re also working on being a competitive eater, because then, hey, two birds with one stone) but it’s sometimes possible to tempt yourself into writing the same way you bribe a kid into eating his/her vegetables. Really want some chocolate? You get some if you write 1,000 words. Thinking about getting yourself a new DVD? 2,000 words and it’s yours. It can even be something as simple as telling yourself you’ll let yourself sleep in Saturday morning an extra hour if you just get a chapter done.

5. Switch up how you write. For me, I tend to type a lot of what I write, just since it’s simpler come editing time, but there is definitely something to be said for handwriting when I’m in a slump. It also means it’s possible to write in bed while completely lying down (hard to type when on your side since you only have one hand). Bonus: It keeps me from getting bored and ending up on Facebook or reading Cracked.com.

6. Don’t Stress. The most important (and perhaps hardest) of the “get past a slump” tips. The more you stress about not wanting to write, the harder it’s going to be for you to write. If you feel like you’re forcing yourself, either your writing is going to sound, well, forced, or you’re not going to be able to write at all. Sometimes you just won’t be able to motivate yourself to write. It isn’t that big of a problem as long as it’s not every time you sit down. Take a coffee/hot chocolate/beverage of your choice break, watch a TV show, calm down and come back to writing later.

But They Did It…

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First, sorry for being away a couple of days. As much as I do love my editing, it can take up a lot of time (luckily my most recent projects have overall been very good. It’s always nice when you truly enjoy reading what people are having you edit) but as I am feeling like a bad blog-poster, I wanted to make sure to get today’s post up. And what is today’s post, you may ask? Best Sellers and Good Writing.

Now, what are some of the best-selling books/series of all time? – Lord of the Rings – Harry Potter – The Da Vinci Code – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Twilight Some of these books have sold over 100 million copies. But does that mean they’re well written? No, not necessarily. Now, I’ve already touched on some of my problems with Twilight in previous blog posts, but of all of the books listed, do you think we could get a consensus on one that everyone thinks is entirely brilliant without any flaws? Though I haven’t read all of the books I’ve listed, I have read a couple. But even the ones I enjoyed didn’t come off to me as faultless. J.R.R. Tolkien can overdo it with the description–the world is brilliant, but I totally skipped that three page description of a tree in Return of the King. Dan Brown’s characters can be one-dimensional–I read The Da Vinci Code in about a day, but couldn’t say I connected with/saw anything all that interesting in the characters. And, as much as I have enjoyed the Harry Potter series, there are plenty of people who point out J.K. Rowling’s writing problems:

“Rowling’s prose is as flat (and as English) as old beer, while Harry himself is not a boy of depth or subtlety.” — Guardian (U.K.)

“In any decent story, the plot is advanced as characters make decisions. In Goblet of Fire, Harry has to enter a tournament because his name pops out of a cup. And he can’t decide not to enter because… the rules of magic say so! Things are just being thrown at Harry because the writer wants to throw them. (It’s even worse than an episode of 24).” — Daniel Radosh In his comment after his main article criticizing Rowling’s adverb use.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way saying that these books are awful–as I said, I enjoyed many of them–but they aren’t perfect. As one poster on a yahoo forum put it: “I know that JK Rowling is a popular writer, but she is not a good writer. Many people use the argumentum ad populum fallacy to argue that JKR is a good writer. (AKA: The books are popular so the books must be written well). Popularity may sometimes be a result of high quality writing, but it can’t be used as evidence that the books are well written.” And truly, that’s what it comes down to. There is no test you have to pass to be a writer. Writing a best seller isn’t about carefully crafting a book after years of study under a master writer. J.R.R. Tolkien was a linguist who ended up making Middle Earth partially out of his love for foreign (often made up) languages. J. K. Rowling supposedly wrote down the idea for Harry Potter on a cocktail napkin. Stephenie Meyer was a receptionist and then a housewife when she wrote Twilight. Years of dedication and work–while it can help–isn’t what makes an author write a best seller. Honestly, part of being a best seller seems to be, at best, luck. It’s being in the right place at the right time with something someone likes. Some people might write brilliant works that are never seen in their lifetimes. Some people might write a so-so novel they don’t care about in a week that sells 500 million copies worldwide. It might not be fair, but that always seems to be the nature of writing. What it does mean, though, is that best-selling authors aren’t any more infallible than anyone else. Copying one won’t save you from making writing mistakes any more than just trying to write something on your own.

This is especially true if you end up copying things that many people don’t like about the best-selling author’s writing (for example, J. K. Rowling’s use of adverbs or Stephenie Meyer’s purple prose). If a book you’ve read inspires you (best seller or obscure) think about what it is about the book that reaches you. What you’ll often find is that the books that generally reach you most do so because of their plot, characters, or something much more broad than just word use/writing style. Writing flowery prose, like Meyer, won’t make your book as popular as Twilight. Spending five pages describing every detail in your world, like J. R. R. Tolkien will at times, will not mean your book will be magically as well received as Lord of the Rings. Gain your inspiration from other authors you admire, but don’t use them as the end all be all for what writing should be.

Write what feels natural to you, learn, grow, take critiques, and become your own author. Not someone trying to emulate X. It’s likely you’ll write better that way.

He said, She said

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Not too long ago now, I wrote a post about Showing and not Telling. While it’s always a good idea to show people what’s happening than tell them it (makes for more interesting reading for one) I didn’t agree with the method my old high school English teacher gave me for trying to stop yourself from telling–don’t use “to be” verbs.

You can read the rest of that post here, but today’s blog is going to focus on a different hotly debated, often hated aspect of writing: The Dreaded “said”.

As someone who’s written a lot of  dialogue, I’m sure I have used more than my share of “he/she/I said”s, and I never much thought about it until I started seeing posts like this in the NaNoWriMo forums:

“When I’m writing dialogue, it’s so hard to think of words besides ‘said’.
Does anyone have any websites that could give me, and other writers, lists of words that could be used besides ‘said’?”

And, “300 Ways to Say Said” a post complete with a list of 300 words you can use in tags, from “he/she/it/I accused” to “he/she/it/I yowled”

So, should you worry about using “said” too much in your novel/novella/short story?

Personally I agree with the post following the last of the list, “and ‘said’ is better in 99% of the cases.”

All right, that answer might be a little extreme, but as a whole, I have to say I agree with the sentiment. There is a time and a place to use other words (is your character whispering, yowling, or screaming? Go ahead and say so) but like trying to avoid using “to be” verbs, avoiding “said” to the point where it makes your writing awkward is much, much worse than having a far share of he said, she saids around the page.

1. People are trained to skip reading “said”s. It’s an odd phenomenon, but it’s a real one. Tags are added to dialogue to make sure the reader doesn’t get confused about who’s talking. For example, if Bill, Tom, and Nancy are having a conversation, you can’t have something along the lines of:

“I’m here!” Bill said.
“Welcome.”
“Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, what took you so long?”

How would anybody know who’s talking? Did Tom say “Welcome” or did Nancy? Is the person who said “Welcome” also asking what took Bill so long, or is there actually a fourth person in the room?

Half of the reason we use tags is just to have the name there. Even without any extra words, it would make more sense if the dialogue read:

Bill, “I’m here!”
Tom, “Welcome.”
Nancy, “Took you long enough.”
Tom, “Yeah, what took you so long?”

That’s basically script format, but it at least tells you who’s speaking. Said is nearly the same equivalent. People glance at the tag long enough to see the name there, and the said tends to roll right off them. Put in other words, though, and their attention starts being draw straight to the tag.

“I’m here!” Bill exclaimed.
“Welcome,” Tom soliloquized.
“Took you long enough,” Nancy scolded.
“Yeah, what took you so long?” Tom contributed.

Maybe you aren’t using said over and over again, but suddenly the attention is on the tag rather than what’s actually being said…and that’s generally a bad thing. (For the record, all of those tags are suggested in the “300 Ways to Say Said” thread).

2. Instead of replacement words, you can tag things with actions. Going back to the first point, let’s look at the words replacing “said”. Ok, let’s keep exclaimed, Bill’s really excited, no reason not to say that. But the others? We can use action tags instead. So, rather than be stuck with “Bill said, Tom said, Nancy said, Tom said” you can have:

“I’m here!” Bill exclaimed.
Tom looked up from his work. “Welcome.”
“Took you long enough,” Nancy said.
“Yeah.” Tom frowned. “What took you so long?”

You still have the names close enough to the tags that you know who’s speaking, but you aren’t using awkward sounding words to keep from using a natural word.

Bonus: You’re showing people rather than telling them. Say you had “Tom scolded” rather than “Tom frowned”. You could do that, but what does scolding really look like? Is he shaking his finger? Frowning? Pursing his lips? ‘Scolded’ doesn’t have a strong picture attached to it. ‘Frowned’ does.

3. People aren’t always yelling/whispering/screaming… There’s a reason using replacement words sound weird when reading dialogue tags–and it’s not just we’re all used to the word said. Words that replace said are often strong ones. If someone is saying something quietly, whispered is probably a better word to use (it means someone’s speaking quietly after all). More than often, though, people tend to just say things. When was the last time you had a conversation where a person was exclaiming, shouting, and yelling everything they were saying in a normal conversation (i.e. not a fight or in a mental ward)? If your characters are having a perfectly nice conversation, but one person keeps whispering, or yelling, or scolding, I’m going to wonder exactly what’s wrong with them. Good if your character is trying to reach Hamlet levels of insane. Not so good if they’re supposed to be rational characters discussing where their friend went.

4. Too often, it feels like you’re trying too hard. As I talked about in my earlier article, “Hey Look! I’m a Writer!” Syndrome, trying to be fancy with your writing doesn’t make you look like a good writer, it makes you look like someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, and thus are trying too hard. You shouldn’t be lazy or cavalier about your writing, but that certainly doesn’t mean you have to labor over every word to make sure it fits with every other artistic gem. Just like it’s perfectly fine to say “The sun rose” rather than “The golden orb floated into the azure sky” it’s perfectly fine to say “He said” rather than “He exclaimed with a fervor”. There’s a time and a place for poetic/flamboyant language, but using it just because you don’t want to be boring or think that’s what good writers do is almost always a bad thing.

And so, with everything else with writing, I always say, say what you mean, but don’t make your writing unnatural just because you think you need to be doing something else to be a “good” writer.

How to Take a Critique

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Anyone who’s had a look around at some of my other blogs probably knows that I am in the process of having a couple of books come out this summer (one under my name, one under a pseudonym). Anyone who follows my Twitter account (or Facebook Fan Page) also probably knows I just sold a short story to a magazine that will be printed in the near future.  All of that, combined with the fact that I edit projects freelance means most of my time lately has been editing/reading edits/reworking edits… and the list goes on and on.

Now, I fully believe being a writer helps you be a good editor. The two don’t necessarily go together (I’ve met some editors who are awful writers and some writers who are awful editors) but part of both jobs is to have a good ear (eye?) for what sounds right on the page.

The other way around, though, I don’t think there’s quite as strong a connection. Great editors can be great writers, of course, but all the other little things that make for a good editor don’t necessary flip straight over to being a good writer. What being an editor does do for writing, however, is help you take critiques.

Luckily for my editor side, every author I have recently worked with has been great (thank you all if you’re reading) but I know very well how bad things can get when you’re editing something for someone who really just wanted a pat on the head to say how good their work is and for you to catch typos.

Now, the writer in me fully understands how hard it can be sometimes to have someone ripping apart your work. As much as I might not like something I’ve written, it seems to fall into a “no one can beat up my brother (erm, writing) but me!” situation when someone else starts pointing out flaws.

But, having been on both sides of the editing process, I also know how helpful editors can be (and not just for the typos). Looking at the most recent round of edits I got on one manuscript, I see my editor pointing out things here and there that I’ve pointed out as problems in manuscripts I’ve read. Obviously I agree that those things need to be changed, but I didn’t catch those problems when it was just me reading my own writing. It’s possible to be too close to your writing to see problems that are obvious for someone else, and thus I always suggest having other people look your writing over before moving on with plans (be it submitting to agents, publishers, or self publishing). It doesn’t have to be a professional editor if you don’t want to pay for one, but at least have a writing group or go through a novel swap with someone else.

To get the most out of editing/critiques though, you have to fight down that urge to automatically defend yourself, so, some important things you can do to make editing most helpful and least painful:

1. Listen silently. This is perhaps most important if you’re speaking with your critiquer/editor in person, but the same holds true any time you are reading a comment. Don’t start defending yourself before they’re done speaking. It’s hard–believe me, I know–but sit silently, listen to/read what they have to say, and then take a deep breath before going forward. It’s possible your reviewer/editor/critiquer has no idea what they’re talking about, but cutting them off to tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about (or not reading a comment because you disagree) won’t help you at all. Listen, absorb, then speak.

2. Just because the edit is “wrong” doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Ok, this of course doesn’t go for edits that make a sentence grammatically wrong, or that introduce typos (sometimes, especially with MS Word Track Changes, typos can appear based on where the program thinks you want something deleted. If you suddenly have “I hadd a boat” feel free to take off the extra ‘d’). This goes for an edit that reworks a sentence into something you didn’t mean. For example, in my recently edited manuscript, the editor changed this sentence:

“The girl stood outside, half-hidden under the overhang.”

to

“The girl stood, half-hiding on the overhang outside.”

Um, no. I didn’t mean the girl was hiding on top of the overhang, I meant the overhang was hiding her. (Someone on the second story can only see part of her past the overhang). Those sentences mean two very separate things, and I definitely didn’t mean the second one. Still, that doesn’t mean I automatically reject the change and move on. It is more helpful to go back, explain that’s not what you meant, and ask if there’s something that would make the sentence clearer. It’s possible the editor was reading too quickly, but it’s also possible that “under the overhang” was confusing the image in her head (sadly readers don’t automatically see exactly what us writers do).

3. Critiques/Reviews/Edits aren’t personal. All right, if the review is “Your writing sucks, your parents should be ashamed of having you as a child” or something along those lines, you’re more than welcome to think the reviewer is a jerk and ignore them. Most of the time, however, edits aren’t personal attacks on you, or even your writing style. A comment that says “This part is dragging, I’d be tempted to stop reading” or the like isn’t an attack. It’s an honest opinion that says that some of your readers might be getting bored and skip ahead (or worse, set the book down all together). Don’t be hurt by it, take it as a chance to rework the section so people love reading it.

4. It’s OK to disagree with your editor/reviewer/critiquer. Going along with not throwing out an idea just because it’s not what you mean, it’s also all right to completely disagree with your editor on some points. Editors aren’t perfect, it’s possible they’ve changed something that you know you had right (and have the grammar guide to back you up on). It’s possible they just aren’t familiar with a word and thus changed it to something that doesn’t quite mean what you meant. If they’re connected to your publisher, yes, you’ll have to work it out with them (often publishers have final say), but if it’s a friend or someone you’ve hired for an edit/critique it’s all just suggestions as to what they think would be best. You can take or leave any of the changes.

5. Figure out if you actually want a critique. While I fully believe all writing can only be completely at its best after some outside edits (be them from a friend, professional or publisher) some people really just don’t want them (see my point about people who want a pat on the head and typos taken out). If you don’t want to work on your story/don’t want anything changed, ask someone to go through and look for typos, and then move on. As a professional editor, I’ve had one or two cases of people who–while they are willing to pay a few hundred dollars for me to go over their work–don’t actually want me to tell them I’d suggest changes. For the most part, it just ends in several emails about how all my edits are wrong, and then me giving up and only pointing out typos and things that are blatantly wrong/confusing to keep them happy. If you want to pay me content edit prices for copy edit work, fine, I won’t stop you, but it would save money and headaches to just say you want a copy edit/proofreading*.

Edits (good ones at least) help make a story the best it can be, and as hard as it might be, not trying to defend yourself is going to be the best way to learn from them. Nobody is perfect, nobody’s writing is perfect. If you’re willing to hear that, even an imperfect editor can help make your writing that much better.

*Before hiring anyone to edit your work, it’s always good to get an editing sample–even if they’ve come very highly recommended–so you can see if how they edit is what you’re looking for. Offering a 5 page sample edit isn’t just how I prove myself, it’s how I make sure my clients would be happy with my in-depth edits. Edits should be helpful, not a headache.

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