Tag Archives: line editing

Fix-It Friday: watch those prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases can be tricky. I’ve found a few ways they can really trip up writers and change the meaning of otherwise fine sentences. One of those ways: the simple order of prepositional phrases. When they become misplaced modifiers, prepositional phrases throw a money wrench in your sentence’s meaning. fif

What’s wrong with these sentences?

Why would she share the secret he’d confided in her in the hall with her parents?

He remembered the dog he’d found as he was walking in the apartment across the street.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

She couldn’t believe he was standing there after their conversation yesterday on the sidewalk.

Notice that often the problem is using multiple modifiers or more than one prepositional phrase. As we stack the phrases, we have to be sure the meaning doesn’t get lost, or we’ll leave our readers like these characters from Clue:

So how would you fix them? Next week!

Photo credits: tools—HomeSpot HQ

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!

Fix-It Friday: Fixing overstuffed sentences

Two weeks ago, we looked at a couple overstuffed sentences—sentences where I was putting too much information in, and tripping up my readers. fifI learned my lesson about overstuffed sentences from editor & RITA-award winning author Alicia Rasley, when she line edited four sentences for me (emphasis added):

Don’t make your reader work so hard to figure out what you’re getting at. Try writing it plainly first, to make sure you’re getting it across, then embellish. But really, I think you’re trying to do too much for one paragraph. This might not have bothered me in two paragraphs or three, if you took your time and really explored what was happening . . . . If that’s too attenuated, see what’s important to keep and make sure everything is clear.

As I’ve said before, sentences should work hard for us as writers and serve several purposes. But there’s a limit to how much you can pack into a sentence or paragraph and still be intelligible to readers.

Another really important point here is that dense (= packed) writing isn’t always better. Sometimes it makes the reader feel dense (= stupid). If something is really important to the story action or the character, often that weight should be matched by the amount of real estate that event gets.

Or as Alicia put it,

If it’s worth stating, . . . it’s worth developing or exemplifying or showing. . . .

I know I’m always saying, “Take it slow.” But don’t try to compress too much.

So, how should we fix our examples from last week?

#1: blow up the emotion

How must the buildings that were so familiar she hardly noticed them look to Father O’Leary? Three years ago, she compared the Gothic chapel, its stone façade flanked by blazing maples in a carpet of lawn, to her parents’ church in city center. At the time, St. Adelaide seemed a suburban oasis; three weeks ago she was disabused of that notion.

“I’m sure it’ll get to feelin’ like home soon enough,” she murmured.

Along with other excellent feedback from editors Alicia & Theresa and other commentators, the passage in question eventually grew—the first paragraph (three sentences) expanded into three paragraphs (eight sentences):

He scanned the whole scene, as if surveying the squat brick school, the rectory, the Gothic chapel’s stone façade flanked by blazing maples in a carpet of lawn. The dismay in his expression dissolved with his satisfied nod. St. Adelaide must seem like a suburban oasis to him.

Three weeks ago, Molly had been disabused of that notion. Now the idyllic scene carried a sinister undertone so strong she couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. She hadn’t even noticed when the maples turned red.

Father O’Leary sighed and looked to her. How could she tell him the truth and shatter his illusion? “It’ll get to feelin’ like home soon enough,” she murmured.

I agreed that this event was important enough to give it more real estate in the book—but it’s not like I devoted an entire chapter to this. Just a few more sentences here made the passage clearer and gave it greater emotional impact.

Note that I decided the reference to the past (three years ago) was not actually worth including, since it distracted from the present—it wasn’t important enough to explore, and thus it probably wasn’t important enough to include.

But you don’t always have to blow it up quite that much. Sometimes, breaking up the action and simply fixing the sequencing is enough.

#2: sequencing and clarity

This is an actual sentence from the first draft of my WIP:

I slip onto the back porch, but the door latch I’m expecting to hear behind me doesn’t come by the time I reach the stairs.

My problems with this:

  • Awkward wording, especially “the door latch I’m expecting to hear behind me doesn’t come”
  • Is the door latch an object? “I’m expecting to” doesn’t tell us right away
  • Most of all, the sequencing is all over the place. She leaves, we don’t see her shutting the door, there’s a sound (or object?), she’s expecting the sound—oh, wait, there’s no sound, stairs?
  • Seriously, where did these stairs come from?

Here’s how I actually fixed it:

I slip onto the back porch, letting the door swing shut behind me. But by the time I reach the stairs down to the yard, the door still hasn’t latched.

The ideas are all still there, but now I’m explaining what happens in order, without skipping steps. She goes onto the porch and shuts the door. She reaches the stairs (which go somewhere that makes sense now) and realizes the door hasn’t latched. Voilà.

And the word count difference? Five words.

Neither of these are going to win a Pulitzer 😉 but perhaps the serviceable lines should be even more smooth to keep your reader moving on to the big stuff, right?

Onward!

#3: breathing room

Those fears and feelings, raw and vulnerable, echoing through me, must be why I finally have to pull back to wipe away my tears.

Also a line from my WIP, this is just a few paragraphs after the above. Kind of a lot to digest all at once, isn’t it?

Again, the change is really simple here, and right to the point: that’s just too much for one little sentence to handle, so we make it two. My fix:

Those fears and feelings, raw and vulnerable, echo through me. Finally I have to pull back to wipe away my tears.

Is it less powerful as two sentences? I don’t think so. In fact, there are some things I like about it better. Instead of stuffing everything into one thought (for what reason?), we give the two important thoughts there a little more room to breathe. It gives each of them a little more time to make an impact.

Oh, and the word difference? -3.

What do you think? Have you found any overstuffed sentences in your writing? How do you fix them? Come share!

Photo credits: tools—HomeSpot HQ; overstuffed beef ravioli—George Hatcher

Fix-it Friday: Overstuffed sentences

Line-editing is now part of editing my book Fix-It Fridays!

fifWay back in our Secret Sauce Series, we talked about overstuffed sentencessentences where we’re trying too hard to appear writerly, putting too much information, being entirely too clever, and just generally confounding our readers.

Once upon a time, I must have held a subconscious belief that a “real” writer made their sentences work two and three times as hard. That’s probably true in a way—each action of a story, each scene and maybe each sentence can accomplish more than one thing.

But instead, I took that to mean that the more complex a sentence, the better. But that’s simply not the case. Yes, sentences should work hard for us as writers and serve several purposes. But there’s a limit to how much you can pack into a sentence or paragraph and still be intelligible to readers.

Here are a couple such overweighted sentences from my own works:

#1 (the passage that taught me this lesson!)

How must the buildings that were so familiar she hardly noticed them look to Father O’Leary? Three years ago, she compared the Gothic chapel, its stone façade flanked by blazing maples in a carpet of lawn, to her parents’ church in city center. At the time, St. Adelaide seemed a suburban oasis; three weeks ago she was disabused of that notion.

“I’m sure it’ll get to feelin’ like home soon enough,” she murmured.

And #2

I slip onto the back porch, but the door latch I’m expecting to hear behind me doesn’t come by the time I reach the stairs.

And #3

Those fears and feelings, raw and vulnerable, echoing through me, must be why I finally have to pull back to wipe away my tears.

Next time (Sept 13 27!), I’ll share how I fixed them—but first, what would you do? Come share!

Photo by HomeSpot HQ

From the archives: Writing well vs. voice

Looking at the other side of the debate from last week’s topic; this article is also a repost from March 2010.

As I said last week, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing well in a character’s voice. But a character’s voice is not defined by mushy writing, like ending sentences with prepositions or using cliches. A writer’s voice is defined by those things—and it’s defined as “lazy.” (Harsh, I know, but I can say it because I know better and I still write that way. Draft that way, at least. Which is fine, really—draft lazy and revise better. But that’s another topic.)

But at the same time, I don’t want to argue that our character’s voice must always be dictated by the “best” way to phrase a sentence. Here’s a subtle example. Let’s pretend this is dialogue.

“Can we go inside?”
“I have no furniture.”

vs.

“Can we go inside?”
“I don’t have any furniture.”

Both lines convey the same information: character is without furniture. Poor character. But how would you characterize someone who says “I have no furniture” vs. someone who says “I don’t have any furniture”? One is more elegant and efficient—but one is more like how someone would speak.

Now let’s put that in narration instead:

“Can we go inside?”
He glanced at the door. He didn’t have any furniture.

vs.

“Can we go inside?”
He glanced at the door. He had no furniture.

Which one sounds like a character’s voice, and which one sounds like it’s a separate narrator providing that information? Which one is “better”?

What’s the point? Although most of the time, we can write in a character’s voice and still write well, that doesn’t mean we have to write “perfectly.” But we should at least know there is an alternative—at least look at the words and the sentences to see if there is a better way of expressing it—before we simply claim “But that’s how my character would say it!” (Yeah, and while you’re at Tosche Station, pick me up an extra condenser coil, wouldja?*)

What do you think? Which of the examples do you prefer? When do you choose not to use the “best” or “most writerly” way to say something?

Photo credit: simplybecka

*Please tell me you get this joke. Please. If not, it’s three seconds—just watch it:

From the archives: Voice vs. writing well

This post originally appeared here in March 2010, but I’ve been thinking about these issues all over again.

A couple weeks ago, on two different editing blogs, professional editors gave some great tips on creating stronger sentences and more vivid writing. The tips were quite different, but I found something a little disturbing about the comments. Here’s an example (synthesized):

Yeah, that’s nice, but my characters have a ‘voice’ and that voice is more important than writing well.

I am all in favor of using character voice in writing narration. I’m sure we can all cite examples of memorable writing in a character’s voice that used incorrect grammar, etc.

But at the same time, there was something more to that character than just the fact that she used “ain’t” or no apostrophes or no perfective tenses. A character’s voice isn’t memorable because you break the rules, it’s memorable in spite of that.

A character’s voice might be memorable because of its conversational quality, but if you really look closely, it’s not memorable because of its ordinariness, its run-of-the-mill-ness. As editor Maryann Miller advised:

A writing instructor once told me to pay attention to how people interact when they talk, but don’t necessarily use exact words you hear in a conversation.

When it comes to working with a client, I try to encourage them to rise above the ordinary in what they are writing.

Would you want to sit through an opera with someone who can kinda sing? We might tolerate it, but if someone can really sing, it’s a pleasure to listen to them for three hours—or 300 pages. Heck, there’s beauty in untaught bluegrass—but that doesn’t mean everyone who tries it is worth hearing. (Animals make noise, too—does that make them all worth listening to?)

As author Don Carey pointed out in the comments two years ago:

Writing well is essential to giving a character a strong voice. To extend your music analogy, character voice is the tonal quality of the instrument – a saxophone sounds different than a cello, which sounds different than a banjo, and they all sound different than a slide whistle. Yet each can make compelling music – as long as they are played in tune.

And the literary equivalent of playing in tune is called writing well. It doesn’t detract from the voice – writing well makes the voice work.

Perhaps the objections were more philosophical than objections to the actual suggestions, because the practices that these writers claimed were “damaging to my voice” were anything but—one was to avoid limping to a conclusion in a sentence and one was to avoid five common cliches/repetitions. Personally, I don’t know anyone who feels that cliches and weak sentences express who they are in their writing. If anything, they undermine the message.

I said this in the comments to one of these posts: The more I think about it, the more I think “but that’s how my character would say it” can be an excuse not to revise. I should know, I use it too.

And, frankly, the changes discussed weren’t substantive. One example: “He took her to his childhood home” as stronger than “He took her to the house he grew up in.” Another was “he nodded” instead of “he nodded his head.” Really? We’re going to claim that those differences—insignificant in the actual word choices, not adding obscure vocabulary or jargon or imagery—are affecting how our character’s voice is expressed? If those defines your character’s voice, methinks this character—and by that, of course, I mean us, the writers—needs to try a bit harder.

That might be how the character would say it, but if the 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.

Next week we’ll talk about the exact opposite: when writing well gets in the way of voice!

What do you think? Is “voice” a defense for mushy writing? Can prepositions and repetitions actually define character voice?

Photo credit: Cliff

Writing well vs. voice

As I said yesterday, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing well in a character’s voice. A character’s voice is not defined by ending sentences with prepositions or using cliches. A writer’s voice is defined by those things—and it’s defined as “lazy.” (Harsh, I know, but I can say it because I know better and I still write that way. Draft that way, at least. Which is fine, really—draft lazy and revise better. But that’s another topic.)

But at the same time, I don’t want to argue that our character’s voice must always be dictated by the “best” way to phrase a sentence. Here’s a subtle example. Let’s pretend this is dialogue.

“Can we go inside?”
“I have no furniture.”

vs.

“Can we go inside?”
“I don’t have any furniture.”

Both lines convey the same information: character is without furniture. Poor character. But how would you characterize someone who says “I have no furniture” vs. someone who says “I don’t have any furniture”? One is more elegant and efficient—but one is more like how someone would speak.

Now let’s put that in narration instead:

“Can we go inside?”
He glanced at the door. He didn’t have any furniture.

vs.

“Can we go inside?”
He glanced at the door. He had no furniture.

Which one sounds like a character’s voice, and which one sounds like it’s a separate narrator providing that information? Which one is “better”?

What’s the point? Although most of the time, we can write in a character’s voice and still write well, that doesn’t mean we have to write “perfectly.” But we should at least know there is an alternative—at least look at the words and the sentences to see if there is a better way of expressing it—before we simply claim “But that’s how my character would say it!” (Yeah, and while you’re at Tosche Station, pick me up an extra condenser coil, wouldja?*)

What do you think? Which of the examples do you prefer? When do you choose not to use the “best” or “most writerly” way to say something?

Photo credit: simplybecka

*Please tell me you get this joke. Please. If not, it’s three seconds—just watch it:

Voice vs. writing well

A couple weeks ago, on two different editing blogs, professional editors gave some tips on creating stronger sentences and more vivid writing. The tips were quite different, but I found something a little disturbing about the comments. Here’s an example (synthesized):

Yeah, that’s nice, but my characters have a ‘voice’ and that voice is more important than writing well.

I am all in favor of using character voice in writing narration. I’m sure we can all cite examples of memorable writing in a character’s voice that used incorrect grammar, etc.

But at the same time, there was something more to that character than just the fact that she used “ain’t” or no apostrophes or no perfective tenses. A character’s voice isn’t memorable because you break the rules, it’s memorable in spite of that.

A character’s voice is not memorable because it’s ordinary. As editor Maryann Miller advised:

A writing instructor once told me to pay attention to how people interact when they talk, but don’t necessarily use exact words you hear in a conversation.

When it comes to working with a client, I try to encourage them to rise above the ordinary in what they are writing.

Would you want to sit through an opera with someone who can kinda sing? We might tolerate it, but if someone can really sing, it’s a pleasure to listen to them for three hours—or 300 pages. Heck, there’s beauty in untaught bluegrass—but that doesn’t mean everyone who tries it is worth hearing. (Animals make noise, too—does that make them all worth listening to?)

The practices that these writers claimed were “damaging to my voice” were anything but—one was to avoid limping to a conclusion in a sentence and one was to avoid five common cliches/repetitions. Personally, I don’t know anyone who feels that cliches and weak sentences express who they are in their writing. If anything, they undermine the message.

I said this in the comments to one of these posts: The more I think about it, the more I think “but that’s how my character would say it” can be an excuse not to revise. I should know, I use it too.

And, frankly, the changes discussed weren’t substantive. One example: “He took her to his childhood home” as stronger than “He took her to the house he grew up in.” Another was “he nodded” instead of “he nodded his head.” Really? We’re going to claim that those differences—insignificant in the actual word choices, not adding obscure vocabulary or jargon or imagery—are affecting how our character’s voice is expressed? If those defines your character’s voice, methinks this character—and by that, of course, I mean us, the writers—needs to try a bit harder.

That might be how the character would say it, but if the 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.

What do you think? Is “voice” a defense for mushy writing? Can prepositions and repetitions actually define character voice? (And tomorrow we’ll talk about the exact opposite: when writing well gets in the way of voice!)

Photo credit: Cliff