Tag: literature

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.

How -Not- to Take a Review

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Recently I posted about how to take a critique, since I know all to well how hard it can be to see your work red-lined after an edit or sit there listening to someone tell you all the problems they had with your work. It’s hard, but very helpful in making your writing the best it can be, be the critique from a friend, writers’ group, professional editor, or your publisher.

Coincidentally (I’m doing my best not to use “ironically” incorrectly, so coincidentally it is) not too long after I posted that article, I got an irate email from an author I recently wrote a review for (as I am a reviewer over at ePublish a Book) demanding the review be removed.

*Before continuing, I would like to say here that this article is in no way meant as an attack against said author. There will be no mention of the author’s name, her book, or links to the review in question. Instead, as with most of my blog posts, I am attempting to use personal experiences to give advice and clear up misconceptions about writing, editing, publishing, and reviewing. All of the following is meant to help those with misconceptions about how the review process works, and I am more than happy to answer additional questions left as comments, tweeted, or emailed to me.*

Now to start, I fully admit I can be a critical reviewer. I do my best to never be unfair, rude, or mean, but I am completely honest in what I think about the books I have read. If you get a good review from me, you have fully earned it. Still, even if I didn’t like a book, I do my best to point out what the author has done well. Unless there is absolutely nothing redeeming about a book, you will not see a review that is only disparaging either.

As that’s my goal as a reviewer–not lampooning ok books and only gushing about great books–I tend to write many mixed reviews: reviews along the lines of “I liked the story, but the prose was needlessly flowery” or “The characters were amazingly realistic, unfortunately the plot didn’t live up to their well-constructed depth” (Neither of those are from actual reviews, but you get the idea). The review in question was likewise mixed.

Obviously the author wasn’t pleased with the critical parts of the review, as not long after it posted I received an email along the lines of:

“Take it down. If you are going to punish an effort, at least tell people first.”

Now, I won’t post the rest of the emails back and forth (there were quite a few with me telling her I wasn’t going to take it down and how reviews generally worked) since that would make for a needlessly long blog post and I don’t think it’s entirely professional to divulge the entirety of private correspondences when they aren’t exactly flattering, but I would like to hit on a few points for anyone who might have some misconceptions about requesting reviews.

1. Unless you are paying for a review, you have no control over what the reviewer writes about your book. As much as I might like to, as it says on my reviews and editing services page, I accept “no money or gifts from authors seeking reviews.” Now, the reason I don’t accept money or gifts is not because I hate gifts nor because I believe reviewing is a job that no one should get paid for. It’s because it’s a conflict of interest. There are some “reviewers” out there that you can send money and they’ll give you nice blurbs to put on your front cover, but I am not one of them. If it were possible to buy a good review from me it would  undermine my credibility as a reviewer. How would people know if I actually thought the book I’m reviewing is a good book or a book I hated but was paid to say good things about it? If I think it’s a good book I’ll say so, if it’s an ok book, that too. If I think it’s a bad book, well, sorry, you’re getting a bad review. Since you aren’t paying me, you don’t get to decide what I say.

2. No control means you do not get to edit the review nor determine whether or not the review is posted. Going back to the “at least tell people first” part of that first email, later emails made clear that–in the event that the review was not glowing–the author expected to get a copy of the review before it was posted to edit (or at least approve) it. While I’m not inherently opposed to the idea of giving an author a copy of what will be posted (though I’ve never heard of that happening outside of the aforementioned reviews-for-hire) it would not give the author the power to pull the article or edit it (e.g. “I don’t like what you say here about my book, can you make it nicer?”) so mostly that would just give the author time to see the review the day before everyone else does.

3. This fact (the author not getting to edit or having to approve a review) is, as far as I know, an industry standard. I can’t say I’ve talked to the entire industry, but no one I have talked to (reviewers/editors I know) has ever given someone asking for a review a copy of the review before hand, nor have they allowed edits. As an author you give them your book and wait until it’s posted. Assuming that you are going to get some say over the review shows either you have no idea how reviewing works or you have only ever paid for reviews/asked for people to give you good blurbs for the dust jacket. Basically, if you act as though you get a say, it makes you look unprofessional.

4. By asking for a review, you are taking the chance of getting a bad review. Going along with the fact that you don’t get a say in what is said in a review if you don’t pay for it, you have to accept that it is possible you won’t get a good review. If you’re extremely worried, try reading other reviews the reviewer you’re contacting has written. Anyone who reads my reviews will see that I don’t often gush about how wonderful a book is, and will point out anything I especially don’t like even in books that I generally like. If you want a review that’s 100 percent amazing you can cut and post to your website, you should either hope your book is completely brilliant or find a reviewer who writes more 100 percent positive reviews. I aim for totally honest reviews as a matter of principle.

5. If you absolutely will only accept a glowing review, ask upfront if the reviewer will refrain from posting a bad review. Now, first off, I DO NOT SUGGEST YOU DO THIS. It again comes off as unprofessional, but if you are absolutely insistent on not having any bad reviews up anywhere of your book, ask up front about it (otherwise it probably won’t cross the reviewer’s mind [see: not industry standard]). Personally, if someone asked that, I’d pass on reading their book entirely. Perhaps there’s someone who’d agree to it, but I’m certainly not one of them. It’s your choice over whether or not you’ll accept a bad review, but you have to accept you’re also passing up a possible good review in your quest to have nothing bad ever written about your book.

6. There’s no such things as bad publicity. Ok, so there is technically (say it comes out that you’re a serial killer or that your book causes brain aneurysms), but in general the old adage is true. So you got a critical review. So what? Not everyone is going to love your book. Ask someone what their favorite book is. They could gush, it could be critically acclaimed, and… there will still be people out there who slam it. Part of being a writer is accepting that fact. If you have a thin skin, you don’t have to look at anything posted about it, but it’s going to happen. Anyway, it’s better to have a so-so review on a heavily trafficked site to get your name out there than it is to only have a couple glowing reviews somewhere no one’s ever going to see them. Who knows, perhaps someone will like the sound of your book, no matter the review, and buy it. They aren’t going to if they’ve never heard of it, even if you have some people gushing about it.

7. A bad review isn’t punishment. Going back to the first email, I’m not sure what effort the author was talking about (requesting the review or publishing a book) but as it isn’t hard to request a review (just send an email) I’m going to assume “punishing an effort” refers to the book. First, as an author you unfortunately don’t get any points for effort. It would be sort of awesome if you did, honestly, but your work is going to sink or swim based on its own merit. If a book you wrote in a week is great, you’re more than likely going to get a great review, if a book you spent three decades working on and edited fifty times is bad, you’re still going to get a bad review. Second, a bad review–like a harsh critique–isn’t personal. The reviewer isn’t trying to punish you, discredit the work you put into the book, or attack you as a writer. They’re just honestly giving their opinion of the book they’ve read.

8. If you disagree with a review, it’s ok to say so, but ranting won’t help you. So you’ve decided to go ahead and ask for a review, and it unfortunately is overwhelmingly negative. FIRST, take a couple of hours, an afternoon, a day, however long it takes until you can think about it rationally. Bad reviews sting, I understand, perhaps even more so than critiques. However, it is not the end of the world. One bad review isn’t going to stop people from buying your book or make people think you’re obviously an awful writer.

Now, it’s hard to get any part of reviews changed (they’re opinions, so there generally aren’t factual errors to dispute and if the reviewer didn’t “get it” you at least have to take partial blame for not writing clearly enough for them to understand) but if there’s something you strongly disagree with, go ahead and contact them about it. You’ll likely get a “sorry, that’s how it is” email back, but it’s possible your reviewer will at least talk to you about why they felt a certain way, if you’re nice. Sending several angry emails and making demands will not get you anywhere. We get it, many reviewers are writers too, we know how you’re feeling. That doesn’t change the fact that our reviews need to hold up to certain standards, otherwise it undermines our credibility.

If you feel a review is unnecessarily rude or unfair, you can likewise email the writer’s editor and nicely try to make your points. As they posted it, it’s likely they too will support their writers (if they thought it was awful, they wouldn’t have put it on their site) but most will at least be willing to explain their decision, and if you’re lucky they may be sympathetic. Ranting at them about how awful and unreasonable a reviewer is being about a review they chose to post isn’t going to endear you.

And so, I hope that helps anyone who is unclear about the reviewing process. Like authors who want a pat on the head while editing, authors who want a pat on the head from a reviewer (and assume they’re going to get one) just makes for unhappy authors and unhappy reviewers. Never a good thing.

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.