Tag Archives: gestures

More resources on gesture crutches

gesture crutchesLast week, I gave a class at the LDStorymakers Conference on gesture crutches. You can find my presentation here, but today I’m sharing the resources I cited in class!

Books on the topic

Blog posts on gesture crutches

The bulk of my presentation came from my own blog posts, especially my series on gesture crutches: finding gesture crutches (the macro code), tracking & changing gesture crutches and strategies to fix the top 10 gesture crutches.

You can find John Gilstrap quoting his editor, Michaela Hamilton, here.

Other resources

Courses by Margie Lawson including Empowering Characters’ Emotions and Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues opened my eyes to gesture crutches and started me on the path to take my writing to the next level!

Gesture crutches presentation

Saturday at the 2014 LDStorymakers Conference, I got to present on gesture crutches! So many wonderful friends turned out at 8 AM, or sat on the floor or even stood to listen to this presentation—thank you! IF YOU WERE IN THE CLASS AND DID NOT GET THE EMAIL SIGNUP SHEET TO RECEIVE CLASS FILES, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW!

So, what are gesture crutches?

Smiling, nodding, laughing, sighing, frowning—they’re all the little gestures we use every day to convey meaning, and they can creep into every page of our writing. These overused actions quickly become flat clichés, sapping your story’s power. Come learn how to find these common “gesture crutches,” discover new strategies to fix them, and use the smallest gestures to personalize your characters.

How do we do this? Check out my presentation to learn more, and be sure to stay tuned for more resources tomorrow!

Fixing the Top 10 Gesture Crutches!

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Gesture crutches

We’ve looked at multiple ways to find your cliché gesture crutches . . . now what? How do we fix these little gestures that creep into our conversations and our manuscripts—eventually weighing down every single scene?

gesture crutchesWe use crutches when we’re lame. Gesture crutches? They’re often a symptom of writing that’s limping along. Don’t let your writing limp! Make it run, jump, dance and sing!

Here are my top ten gesture crutches that I either write or see too often, and how I fix them. Note that the top ten will vary from person to person. I do not eliminate these words completely from my manuscript, but I try to make sure that I don’t use them too often or too close together, and when I do use them, they should be as fresh and unique as the scene can handle.

How do I tackle all this?

First, in a paper edit, I use one of the techniques from Wednesday, writing down the body parts/action in the margin, then reading those notes aloud for pattern and repetition. I make notes and adjustments based on that.

Later, I use a macro to “harvest” all the sentences containing those terms from my WIP. Rather than using find thousands of times, I go through that new document and make a note of a few things in the document:

  • patterns (she smiled in joy, she smiled in gratitude, he frowned in disapproval, etc.)
  • echos (“my heart kick starts” and “my pulse jumpstarts,” especially fairly close together)
  • uses too close together
  • uses that don’t make sense (could be the lack of context, but I made a note to check)
  • uses that aren’t necessary
  • uses that are awkward
  • uses that could be fresher
  • uses that are “bare” and could just be filler action tags: i.e. Jimmy frowned. “What do you mean?”—punch up, freshen, replace or cut. (Gasp! You could use a dialogue tag!)

On my first pass, I’m only marking the things I want to look at, unless inspiration for a rewrite strikes. Then I go back through and make the changes in the manuscript.

Fixing those crutches!

As I go through each set of sentences, I look at those notes and strategize how to make my changes. Here are some of the alternatives I’ve thought about for the following 10 gestures. Note that a lot of these strategies can work for all body language cues, so there’s a bit of repetition between the lists.

Nods

Characters who nod too much are liable to have their heads fall off, or at least sound like bobbleheads.

  • Give a character (most likely just one) a unique, character-specific gesture—I used eyebrow-nods (it only happens 2-3 times).
  • Change to just “agrees.”
  • If the character is complying with a request, cut the nod altogether and just have them obey.
  • If they were just nodding at something/someone, consider using gesturing, pointing, indicating with eyes, jerking head, tapping, etc.
  • Convert some nods to dialogue: “Yes/yeah/sure.”
  • Cut anything unnecessary.
  • Punch up ones that remain, as much as you can in their context. A few examples of fresher nods to get your juices flowing:
    • a single, decisive dip of the chin
    • a yeah-sure-we’ll-see-about-that nod
    • “The receptionist smiled and nodded in that way people do when they aren’t listening.” —Harlan Coben, No Second Chance

And remember: you don’t ever have to say a character nods her head/up and down/yes. They are all redundant. What else do you nod? How else do you nod? What else does a nod mean after a yes/no question?

Head shake

Again, we’re in danger of losing someone’s head due to stripped out cervical vertibrae. Just don’t.

  • Convert to dialogue! From a flat-out “No” to a muttered “unbelievable,” dialogue can not only carry so much more impact than shaking one’s head, it can also make your meaning clearer without resorting to a pesky adverb.
  • Use another gesture to portray the meaning: a sigh (if you haven’t already overused those!), a tongue-cluck, a wagging finger, etc.
  • Use another verb for “shake”: wag, . . . . uhhhhh . . .
  • Cut.
  • If a lot of your head shakes are being used to convey the same message (other than no—maybe disbelief or disappointment), then take a little while to sit down and think about all the ways you can convey that nonverbally. Watch people, watch reality TV, watch well-acted movies, and see how those people look when they’re experiencing that emotion. Look for subtle and unique tells. Check out The Emotion Thesaurus, or this writers’ game, where you pick the body part first for more ideas.
  • Try “disagrees,” “demurs” or other d words. I mean verbs of disagreement.
  • If you have to have to have to keep it, punch it up! Maybe your character shakes his head like a dog getting out of the washtub, or like he’s afraid it’ll fall off, or like he’s wearing a neck brace.

Smiles

I swear, sometimes my characters sound like grinning idiots. Smile at this; smile at that. Save the smiles for when it counts, not just as a conversational smoother.

  • Try other words, like beams or grins—but these are easy to overuse, too! I try to check these one after another.
  • Give the character a particular type of smile. Maybe he smiles like a feral dog or a jack o’lantern, or a presidential candidate.
  • Use subtext or dialogue to convey approval, gratitude, or other messages.
  • Write it fresh! Give it a message, or use a simile to compare it to something (that isn’t a cliché). Some fresh smiles to get you thinking:
    • “‘They’re all in there waiting for you,’ she said, flashing an I’m-glad-I’m-not-you smile.”—Angela Hunt, The Note, via Margie Lawson.
    • From my WIP: “He orders two coffees with his I’m-so-charming-you-should-throw-in-something-for-free smile.”
    • My favorite smile in all literature (can we say amplified?): “He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Raised Eyebrows

One raised eyebrow. Two. Three. It doesn’t matter. The gesture can mean anything from surprise to disbelief to sarcasm. It’s too generic and overused to mean much of anything these days: a classic cliché.

  • Think about the underlying emotion and find other gestures that might convey it more clearly, especially since “he raised his eyebrows in confusion” becomes not only a cliché but also telling. Watch people, watch reality TV, watch well-acted movies, and see how those people look when they’re experiencing that emotion. Look for subtle and unique tells. Check out The Emotion Thesaurus, or this writers’ game, where you pick the body part first for more ideas.
  • Cut.
  • Use dialogue to convey the response or emotion.
  • Write it fresh! Use a unique verb, describe their movement in a unique way, or show the message you’re trying to send. A few of my quick, fresh eyebrows:
    • His eyebrows jumped to meet his receding hairline.
    • “Uh huh,” he said, his eyebrow propped up an inch.
    • She raised her eyebrow, nailing him with that patented mother-knows-better-than-you look.

An exception to the rule: most of the time, you don’t have to eradicate these words, but I think I’ll be eliminating the majority of my plain eyebrow raises.

Glance

It’s like my characters can’t look at anything for very long. Focus, people! You do not have ADH—squirrel!

  • Use another verb. Be careful not to overuse synonyms or use words so unusual that they call attention to themselves.
  • If it’s the POV character, just show what s/he saw and skip the filter word.
  • If the glance is less to see something and more to convey a particular message, spell out the message in a fresh or funny way.
  • Ooor use dialogue for that fresh, funny message.
  • Write it fresh!

Furrowed brow (or eyebrows drawing together)

In my latest manuscript, the only time I mentioned “brows” was when they were furrowed. Which makes mine furrowed, too.

  • Use a simile. Lots of things are wrinkly: pugs, my laundry, septuagenarians. Note: are stormclouds overused in this context?
  • It seems like this expression rarely occurs in isolation. Focus on another part of the face or the body language. As always, this is best with a gesture or body part that’s specific and unique to the character.
  • Watch either of these in the POV character. Both can sound like an external visual instead of the character describing his/her own conscious movements.
  • Write it fresh! Some fresh eyebrows & brows to get you rolling:
    • She looks like Our Lady of Perpetual Solemnity.
    • His eyebrows pull together in knit two, purl two ribbing. (Want to get uberjargony? Say “k2p2 rib.”)
    • The gray caterpillars above his eyes lean in for an intimate moment.

Eyes widen/narrow/light up

I make my characters’ expressions while writing. . . . I probably look like I have crazy eyes!

  • Find another body part or part of the expression to highlight. I’m searching for a good way to write the feeling of your scalp tightening when you’re surprised.
  • Use a simile. Can her eyes light up like a firework or narrow like a camera lens?
  • Go for dialogue instead. In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Brad Pitt’s character tells Angelina Jolie’s that when he first saw her, she looked like Christmas morning. A kid’s eyes lighting up on Christmas morning would have been a cliché; instead the writers used a metaphor an narrowly avoided the tired phrase.
  • My favorite way to write it fresh: Find a character-specific situation to describe in a simile. What would make her eyes narrow? A lying ex? A too-good to be true sale? A delinquent teen? What makes his eyes light up? Hot girls? A challenging math puzzle? The latest FPS video game?

Laugh

I’ve written whole conversations where the characters just take turns laughing. But laughing is one of those things: if the character laughs, the reader doesn’t have to.

  • Is it really that funny? “LOL” really means “I found that amusing” these days. Don’t overuse laughing with your characters that way.
  • Is a response necessary? Sometimes you can cut the laugh altogether.
  • Use dialogue, and if you’re already using dialogue, drop the laughter.
  • Consider a synonym for laugh, but most chortles and guffaws draw attention to themselves.
  • Describe the laugh to make it pop. Write it fresh!:
    • A suuuure-you-can laugh.
    • Her laughter was bright and thin and , like the sound of cheap jingle bells you buy one year—and the next find inexplicably silent.

Sigh

Okay, I’m being sarcastic about the other gestures, but I really did once write a scene where a character decided not to sigh, thinking everyone else was doing enough moody exhaling for them all.

  • Especially watch for clichés like “a sigh of relief.” Write it fresher!
  • If they’re not absolutely necessary, delete!
  • Look at the underlying emotion. How else might it be manifest? Vocal tone? Shoulders, fists,
  • Look at another narrative mode. Would it be more powerful to describe the reason for the sigh in thought, or better yet, dialogue?
  • If you must use several sighs, you might consider finding a way to punch them up systematically. In Paranormalcy by Kiersten White, one of her characters is introduced early on as speaking a “professional sigher.”
  • Kiersten White goes further than that, describing those sighs with the message they send:
    • “This was more of a sympathetic, I know what it’s like to be a human wrapped up in all this non-sense, but if we didn’t do it, who would? kind of a sigh” (12).
    • “Raquel gave me her best why is it always me that has to deal with these things sigh (one I was well familiar with at this point), then patted me on the shoulder” (20).
    • “She gave a can I just start shocking him into submission now sort of sigh” (25).

Gaze/Eyes

Aside from the eyes widening, narrowing or lighting up, they tend to do a lot of other things to convey meaning. Although I would NEVER recommend cutting all the eyes (ouch!), watch out for using too many eyes in one scene. Even alternating them with gaze might not work if that’s overused, too.

  • Track the usage: are those gazes/eyes, meeting, avoiding, lowering, falling, etc. too much or in too close proximity?
  • Alternate gaze/eyes—within reason! Don’t describe a gaze with the color of the eyes, etc. (A blue gaze? No.)
  • Try an alternative noun, as long as they’re not overused, too (many of these are on my watch list!): stare, (fixed) look, scrutiny, inspection, regard.
  • Or, if it’s a verb, try an alternate verb (again, many of these are also on my watch list): stare, look (fixedly), gape, goggle, eye, study, scrutinize, ogle, eyeball, observe, view, contemplate, regard, survey, consider, watch, check out, size up.
  • Use a nickname for the eyes, or bring out a character description or personality with them. Perhaps a flirtatious character bats his baby blues.
  • Maybe being more general might help, using the word face or expression.
  • As always, look at the underlying message. How else can you portray that in body language? Hands touching/not touching/pulling away? Physical proximity? Turning toward or away?
  • Consider whether the message might carry more power as a thought or dialogue, if appropriate.

In conclusion

Is this hard work? YES! Is it worth it? We can—well, actually, we probably can’t cite examples of less-than-engaging writing in published books: unless they’re book-throwing bad, we tend to gloss over this boring body language just like we do a lot of other unstellar examples.

I can’t help but believe this level of care, attention and effort pays off in your writing.

Final note: Let me say again that I don’t feel compelled to change every use of everything. I left my share of nods, smiles, and eyebrows in my latest manuscript. If we didn’t use these body parts and actions, our writing probably wouldn’t feel realistic. But now I feel my writing is more engaging because I’ve eliminated the superfluous, meaningless, confusing and repetitive.

What do you think? How do you fix these gesture crutches? Is this worth it?

Photo credits
crutches on orange backgroundChristian Guthier; “smile”—Andy Hay;
crutches through window—Amy van der Hiel; sigh—Lucy/squacco

Writing crutches: How to avoid overusing the most common gestures!

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Gesture crutches

This is one of my favorite, most useful posts. Since we mentioned editing gesture crutches recently, I wanted to share it again!

I’ll admit it: I’m addicted to gesture crutches. I use them over and over again throughout a book or chapter or sometimes even scene. It’s like I can’t stop, especially when I’m drafting!

gesture crutchesWhat are gesture crutches, and why should we avoid them? As editor Michaela Hamilton said in an revision letter:

Don’t resort to overused gestures such as shrugged, nodded, sighed, shook his head. These are ok occasionally, but in general, seek more vivid gestures that tell more about a character, help set a mood, and create visual dimension in the scene.

Guilty as charged [author John Gilstrap writes]. My problem here is that the ones she notes are the only conversational gestures that I know of. I stipulate that I overuse them, but if anyone has other gesture arrows that I can add to the quiver, feel free to speak up.

I, too, am guilty as charged. It’s tough to come up with original gestures, and sometimes distracting to the reader. (Think we’re alone in struggling with this? Check out this thread on Nathan Bransford’s forums.) While critique partners and editors are pretty much a must-have for the ultimate solution, I’ve found a couple ways to check myself on gestures.

Using character-specific, unique gestures

A couple weeks ago, I finished Brandilyn Collins’s Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors. Her very first secret, “Personalizing,” describes the process of finding a unique gesture for a character. Her example is of a rich, insecure woman who dislikes her hands, but wants to show off her ring, a symbol of her wealth. Can’t you just imagine how a woman like that would hold her hands? (It’s a conflicted gesture!)

Writing simple gestures more creatively

my cousin and her friend collect pictures of themselves shruggingI also heartily recommend Margie Lawson‘s course on Empowering Character Emotions, which covers these repetitive gestures and how to write them “fresh” and “empowered,” when necessary—and how to tell when they’re not necessary at all. I also have her lecture packet on Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist, which I’m sure builds upon those same principles (but I haven’t chiseled out the time to read it yet. Shame on me!). Margie teaches Empowering Character Emotions online in March (it was $30 last year) and the lecture packets are available year-round ($22—both are a great deal!) (and I only wish I were affiliated with her 😉 ).

Come up with a stable of original expressions

This is also from Margie Lawson (with a little interpretation from me). I realized I have a lot of sarcasm in my MS (which I love), and there were only about five gestures of sarcasm (folded arms, rolling eyes, one raised eyebrow, scoffing, pursed lips, if I remember correctly). Since I already knew the emotion I was going for, I set out to write some original, creative gestures that conveyed sarcasm. Then I had a collection of gestures to draw on and even extrapolate from further. I also found The Bookshelf Muse’s Emotion Thesaurus super-helpful!

Pick the body part first

You could do any of these by picking a lesser-used body part. I once played this writers’ game where two members of the group had to act out a scene and the rest of us had to write about their emotions using assigned body parts. I had wrists and heels. It was awesome! One character stomped around hard enough to leave half-moons in the cement floor. Another offered apologetic wrists. Another had her arms fly open like windshield wipers. Will I ever use those? Maybe not. But that kind of vivid, imaginative imagery can help you create better, more appropriate images.

Monitoring your gestures

I’m proudest of this one because I came up with it myself (extrapolated from Margie’s EDITS system). When editing a scene, make a note of what body part/area is used in the line: hands, eyes/eyebrows, shoulders, lips/mouth, etc., in the margin. Then read the list aloud for the whole scene/chapter. This helped me pinpoint repetitive or too-similar gestures in close context as well as look at the gestures themselves. If I found I had ARMS too close to one another, I could look at those two gestures quickly and easily to see how similar they were.

Pull out the sentences en masse

New to the 2012 edition! I wrote a bit of code to make Word pull out all the sentences that use these gesture crutches, and you can customize it to your word list (there’s also a great version by Paul Edelstein for code-o-phobes!). I’ll probably still use the monitoring technique above to make sure I’m not using any one body part too often in a scene, but now I can focus on just my use of smiles or nods throughout the book to make sure they’re necessary, not repetitive, and fresh.

What do you think? How do you keep yourself from repeating the same conversational gestures?

Photo credits: crutches on orange backgroundChristian Guthier; my cousin’s Facebook.

Is there a better way?

When I moved into my home six years ago, my husband and I went to our local LDS temple. We didn’t know quite how to get there, and we ended up calling someone who didn’t live nearby to give us directions. Because we knew that route, we took it on each visit for the next four years. On a whim, I tried another route one day—and cut the trip by a third.

Frequently when I get critiqued or judged, I get defensive of my work. Granted, all suggestions won’t work for your story, you know your story best, and sometimes critique partners can be just plain toxic. But even bad advice can make our story better when it makes us take another look at our story with a critical eye, when we recognize that just because we wrote it that way, it might not be the best way.

I liked what Katie Ganshert said about this recently about developing skills and editing as an evocative writer:

I want to be an evocative writer. I want to transport my readers into the story. I want to make them feel what the characters are feeling. Which means I spend a lot of time trying to imagine what something feels like, and then trying to figure out how to translate those feelings into words.

Which is exactly what I tried to do when my hero touched my heroine’s arm for the first time. I sat in my chair and I tapped my chin and I tried to think, “What does this feel like? And how can I write this feeling in a fresh way?” . . .

So . . . I wrote: Something warm spread through her arm, as if she’d dipped her elbow into a bowl of hot pudding. . . .

Shannon [her editor] gave me a call and as we were talking she said, “You’re right. That is what it feels like. But elbows in pudding are not appetizing to people. It’s warm, but it’s messy and makes a person feel like they need a paper towel to wipe off their elbow. So what else does it feel like?”

Something in my brain started to click.

She went on to explain that just because a line isn’t working doesn’t mean I’m supposed to delete it. In fact, Shannon didn’t want me to delete it. She wanted me to make the line work. To keep the feeling intact using different imagery. . . .

Pinpointing how something feels is important. But using the right imagery to evoke those feelings is equally important.

This weekend I was looking through some older posts and I came across one from January about gesture crutches. Both of these posts made me think about the same fact:

Just because you wrote it one way doesn’t mean it’s the best way. We should always consider if there’s a better way to say what we’re saying.

I see people defend poor writing by saying it’s their character’s voice. Honestly, I think a lot of the time what they’re really thinking is that “I wrote it that way, so it’s right.”

Maybe. But could you write it better? Could your character say it better? If your character got another chance (or ten) to look at it over again and revise it (for publication), is that how he’d still say it? No, he may not make it poetic and beautiful and use words and images he doesn’t know, but that doesn’t mean he’d leave a mushy sentence there and allow it to undercut his meaning or make him boring and ordinary—and neither should you.

Because why else would we edit? Why wouldn’t we just submit first drafts and companies publish first drafts? Because there’s a better way to say it. And I think (and hope) self-publishing will ride out the same way: you’ll be able to tell who edits and who slaps their first drafts on the market, who says “I wrote it that way, so it’s right” and who says, “I did write it that way, but maybe there’s a better way to say it.”

So, can you say it better?

What do you think? What lessons have you learned from revision (or just thinking about it?)?

Map image courtesy of The Journey 1972 (South America “addicted”)

Writing crutches: gestures

I’ll admit it: I’m addicted to gesture crutches. I use them over and over again throughout a book or chapter or sometimes even scene. It’s like I can’t stop, especially when I’m drafting!

What are gesture crutches, and why should we avoid them? As editor Michaela Hamilton said in an revision letter:

Don’t resort to overused gestures such as shrugged, nodded, sighed, shook his head. These are ok occasionally, but in general, seek more vivid gestures that tell more about a character, help set a mood, and create visual dimension in the scene.

Guilty as charged [author John Gilstrap writes]. My problem here is that the ones she notes are the only conversational gestures that I know of. I stipulate that I overuse them, but if anyone has other gesture arrows that I can add to the quiver, feel free to speak up.

my cousin and her friend collect pictures of themselves shruggingI, too, am guilty as charged. It’s tough to come up with original gestures, and sometimes distracting to the reader. (Think we’re alone in struggling with this? Check out this thread on Nathan Bransford’s forums.) While critique partners and editors are pretty much a must-have for the ultimate solution, I’ve found a couple ways to check myself on gestures.

Using character-specific, unique gestures
A couple weeks ago, I finished Brandilyn Collins’s Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors. Her very first secret, “Personalizing,” describes the process of finding a unique gesture for a character. Her example is of a rich, insecure woman who dislikes her hands, but wants to show off her ring, a symbol of her wealth. Can’t you just imagine how a woman like that would hold her hands? (It’s a conflicted gesture!)

Writing simple gestures more creatively
I also heartily recommend Margie Lawson‘s course on Empowering Character Emotions, which covers these repetitive gestures and how to write them “fresh” and “empowered,” when necessary—and how to tell when they’re not necessary at all. I also have her lecture packet on Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist, which I’m sure builds upon those same principles (but I haven’t chiseled out the time to read it yet. Shame on me!). Margie teaches Empowering Character Emotions online in March (it was $30 last year) and the lecture packets are available year-round ($22—both are a great deal!) (and I only wish I were affiliated with her 😉 ).

Come up with a stable of original expressions
This is also from Margie Lawson (with a little interpretation from me). I realized I have a lot of sarcasm in my MS (which I love), and there were only about five gestures of sarcasm (folded arms, rolling eyes, one raised eyebrow, scoffing, pursed lips, if I remember correctly). Since I already knew the emotion I was going for, I set out to write some original, creative gestures that conveyed sarcasm. Then I had a collection of gestures to draw on and even extrapolate from further. I also found The Bookshelf Muse’s Emotion Thesaurus super-helpful!

Pick the body part first
You could do any of these by picking a lesser-used body part. I once played this writers’ game where two members of the group had to act out a scene and the rest of us had to write about their emotions using assigned body parts. I had wrists and heels. It was awesome! One character stomped around hard enough to leave half-moons in the cement floor. Another offered apologetic wrists. Another had her arms fly open like windshield wipers. Will I ever use those? Maybe not. But that kind of vivid, imaginative imagery can help you create better, more appropriate images.

Monitoring your gestures
I’m proudest of this one because I came up with it myself (extrapolated from Margie’s EDITS system). When editing a scene, make a note of what body part/area is used in the line: hands, eyes/eyebrows, shoulders, lips/mouth, etc., in the margin. Then read the list aloud for the whole scene/chapter. This helped me pinpoint repetitive or too-similar gestures in close context as well as look at the gestures themselves. If I found I had ARMS too close to one another, I could look at those two gestures quickly and easily to see how similar they were.

What do you think? How do you keep yourself from repeating the same conversational gestures?