Technique

Voice vs. writing well

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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

Technique

How to be completely unhelpful as a critique partner

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This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series bad advice

I sometimes feel like I’ve been on the receiving end of a disproportionate number (or maybe just quality) of flat-out bad critiques. In saying that, I’m not saying that I’m a better writer or smarter or prettier than these critique partners (or that I’ve never had good critique partners, because I do have several)—but I’ve come to believe it takes special talent to read, comment on and “correct” eight, eighty or eight hundred pages and do nothing to improve the story. Especially when said story is mine, and thus, far from perfect.

Don’t we all want to develop our talents?! So, with much of the following based on actual feedback (but only a couple so noted), here’s some advice on

How to be completely unhelpful as a critique partner

Deliberately try to misread or misunderstand. If there’s any possible way this writing can be misinterpreted, no matter how much of a stretch, no matter if you understood perfectly the first four times you read it, no matter what variety of garbled English you’d have to speak to understand it that way, make a big note of how lost you are.

Contradict yourself. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Or it isn’t.

Slavishly adhere to each and every rule you think you’ve ever heard or should use. Somebody once said something about never, ever, ever, ever using nouns, right?

Make an example of your critique partner. Why, just the other day, you and Completely Uninterested Party were discussing this principle. You must make DARN sure that this author knows it and knows it well after you’re through with her!

Overread. I think there really may be something more going on with this dialogue tag. “She said”? I think that must carry a lot of nuance. I don’t get it, though. Can you explain it better?

Underread. A page should take no more than 60 seconds to read and comment on. If all facts presented are not perfectly clear upon initial skim, the failing is obviously the author’s.

Take sarcastic pot shots at characters (or author). That whole too-stupid-to-live thing is so obvious it must be intentional. Maybe the writer’s equally stupid? The best way to point it out is to use “stupid” as often as possible, or whatever other word you want.

Be cruel. It’s called tough love for a reason. And who couldn’t use a thicker skin? Just wait for reviews.

Overexplain. Yeah, on all the other 25 pages the author conjugated her verbs right, but man, right here she didn’t. Let’s learn subject-verb agreement, shall we??

Highlight every instance of a mistake. There are ten sentences in the chapter where she uses “as”? Mark every single one. One author once said we can’t have anything happen simultaneously. Smiling and walking at the same time? Ridiculous! (Actual advice from a contest judge, not phrased that way.)

Assume nothing is intentional. They used the word “raven” three times in four pages? Ugh. Nobody would ever pay for such drivel. Or memorize it hundreds of years later.

Make no overall comments. She can figure out what I thought of it based on my line-by-line reactions.

Make no comments overall. Or not.

Make no comments on the text.

Make no comments in the text. And three to four sentences overall should be sufficient. For a whole manuscript. Make sure one of them was “Pretty good,” “Surprisingly competent,” or “I liked your font.”

Use your mother’s grammar rules on a deep POV passage. That character needs to go back to third grade if he says “like” instead of “as if.” (The grammar principle, not phrased this way, was advice I received in comments from a published contest judge. As. If!)

Don’t waste time thinking about your suggestions or their implications for the story. After all, what’s the writer’s job?

Don’t converse with your critique partner afterward, especially not to clarify anything you said. If they don’t get it, it’s not your problem. And if they try to contradict you under the guise of discussion? Cut all ties.

Take absolutely none of their advice on your own work. They’re coming to you for help, aren’t they? How could they possibly improve your work?

Remind them what a favor you’re doing. Make sure they’re sufficiently grateful.

Don’t give examples or explain what you mean.

Point out the obvious. It helps them see it.

Make generic comments to point out weaknesses at the end of scenes, not where the problems occur. Oh, yeah, there was a problem like two or three pages ago, but that’s just so much scrolling. I’m sure she’ll figure out where I mean.

Make sure it’s written exactly the way you’d write it. The author’s voice? Pfft. Take it upon yourself to rewrite a scene to show her how it’s done. But don’t look back at their scene–their details might contaminate your brilliance.

Take everything literally. Figurative language is for wimps.

What do you think? How else can you be a completely unhelpful critique partner?

Photo credits: sign—Eric Kilby; cats—icanhascheezburger; thumbs down—striatic

Technique

I am IN control

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Today Nathan Bransford blogged about something I’ve often wondered about. You know your writerly friends (some of them are you guys) who say of their characters, “I can’t write; Jimmy’s rebelling. He won’t go to Angela’s.”

Usually I have to give the online equivalent of the smile and nod. Because I’ve never had that happen (knock on wood!). I honestly can’t remember a time when I’ve had a character not “participate” or keep me from writing entirely, nor when a character has “taken over” and dictated an entirely new plot.

I think Nathan says it well:


And this [characters coming alive and taking the story in another direction] can really help out a story – while obviously the characters are only alive insasmuch as they’re in the author’s (living) head, this may be a way of expressing that the author is being true to the logic of a situation. The author has a sense of the character, and it’s important that the character’s actions are logically consistent.

At the same time, I always find it curious to hear authors so completely in thrall to their worlds and characters, and I start wondering, “Wait a second, who’s in charge here?”

I try not to over outline, but I usually know (or figure out during the course of a scene or sequence) what my characters need to do next, either for themselves or for the external plot. This isn’t to say it’s always easy to “make” them do that, or to make the jump—I do sometimes stop and say, “Now, why would s/he do that? What would motivate him to do that?” (Or “how can I make him do that, or want to do that?”)

This is an awesome part of having a co-author/alpha reader—sometimes they can do all this heavy lifting for you, and sometimes they point out the place where you might need to think it through a little more.

I have had characters “tell” me things—back stories, histories, twists that can affect and enrich the plot. I’ve had their inner conflicts develop into major interpersonal conflicts over the course of the story.

But sometimes I worry when I hear other writers complain about their characters not cooperating—if I’ve not had that happen, are my characters not “alive” enough? Are they just puppets to me? Am I forcing them to do things they wouldn’t if I were more in tune with who they really were?

What do you think? Is it possible to have well-rounded, “living” characters who don’t attempt to hijack the story or derail a writer?

Photo credit: Robert V

Publishing

Overcoming writer envy

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You pick up the paper hit up Facebook and the latest overnight sensation is the big popular article today. He disdained writing until one of his neighbors said, “You should write a book!” and so he did and now he lives in Aruba off the best-seller’s proceeds.

And you hate him. Ohhhh how we hates the nasty, mean writerses. He didn’t earn that success like I have, we tell ourselves. I’ve been working my butt off and honing my craft and writing and polishing and repolishing and reading and researching and submitting and getting rejected for years, and his book’s not any better than mine (though, admittedly, I haven’t read it)(in the hypothetical, not just because this whole thing is imaginary). Why does he get a twelve-figure advance for his next book that he never wanted to write in the first place?

Okay, now the example is getting extreme. But how often do you read about an author—or read their books—and think, “That could be me—no, it should be. <pout>”? Or you read a beautifully-written book and wish you could write like that, wanting it so bad that even thinking of that author leaves a bitter taste in your mouth <pout>?

Well, it’s time to </pout> .

But their writing is just so masterful! I’ll never measure up. Remember that you are not reading their first draft. Their first drafts might be utter drivel. Published authors are (usually) the ones who take the time and effort to polish drivel into mastery. And also remember that published authors have at least one publishing professional working with them—an editor, an agent, someone who knows what they’re doing, too.

But they didn’t earn it like I have! You don’t know that. The whole “I thought writers were boring stupidheads” story might have come from the PR department. We all (almost all) love overnight success stories. And even if he did think writers were boring stupidheads, we still don’t know how hard he really worked to improve his craft, nor how long it took for him to reach that publishing finish line.

But . . . I’ll never be that successful. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. That’s the real issue here, isn’t it? We’re afraid that either a.) his success diminishes our own, or our own chances or b.) we’re just flat-out not that good, or lucky, or whatever. Could it be that we’re not really cut out for this whole publishing thing?

Come on, now. Chin up. Some of us spend longer earning our stripes—some of us 11,000 rejections longer. Usually, the writers who get published are the ones who persevered.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that you really can’t judge a book by its cover—and you can’t measure yourself against others.

How do you experience writer envy? How do you overcome it?

Photo by Eric Tastad

Mechanics

Who’s laughing now?

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Well, after all that tension, I thought we could all use some stress relief, eh? Every once in a while, after all, you do have to let it out.

The other day I was reading a blog post that mentioned making someone laugh. “Not just guffawing, but outright laughing,” they clarified (okay, that’s not what they said, but that’s basically the idea). But that note left me scratching my head: isn’t guffawing harder than laughing?

So today I bring you a game! From two thesasauruses (those are dinosaurs that know a lot of words), I gathered all the synonyms for laughter:

amusement
be in stitches
break up
burst
cachinnate
cackle
chortle
chuckle
convulsed
crack up
crow
die laughing
fit
fracture
gesture
giggle
glee
grin
guffaw
heehaw 		hilarity
howl
merriment
mirth
peal
rejoicing
roar
roll in the aisles
scream
shout
shriek
snicker
snigger
snort
sound
split one’s sides
titter
wakka wakka wakka
whoop
yuck

In the comments, let’s rank these from the most hilarity/hardest laughter to lightest. (And feel free to leave out ones you don’t know. “Cachinnate”?!) Note that this list includes both nouns and verbs.

Photo by Jackson Carson

Technique

Why suspense?

This entry is part 9 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Why are suspense, tension and surprise all so important? We’ve established that suspense and tension draw the readers along through your story, and compel them to keep reading. But it’s more than just making readers read, and rewarding them (with surprise sometimes)—it’s making them want to read your book (and your next one).

tss series medJames Scott Bell highlights one reason why these elements are so important: “Modulating tension is one of the keys to writing fiction” (Revision And Self-Editing, 82). We started off our series with a quote from agent Noah Lukeman: “Suspense, more than any other element, affects the immediate, short term experience of the work” (The Plot Thickens, 119).

But Lukeman further explains why being conscious of tension and suspense are so important:

The presence of suspense is . . . a feat and shows promise, since it indicates that the writer is writing more for the reader than for himself. (120)

I think it’s easy—and for many of us, important—to draft for ourselves. I’m told Stephen King says you should write the first draft “with the door closed”—with little to no input or interference from others, so that you can get out the story you’re trying to tell. Remember the delight, the way you relish the scenes that you’ve been waiting for your whole book long?

But when we’re ready to open that door, to share your writing with an eye to improving it, it’s not about what you loved writing and what you still love reading anymore. It’s about what someone else—an agent, an editor, a customer in a bookstore—will love reading, what will suck them in and drag them on a relentless, compelling journey with your characters. Focusing on the experience of your readers shows that you’re not just in it to entertain yourself and a few friends—you’re here to tell a story, to get people reading—to entertain.

What do you think? Why are suspense, tension and surprise so important?

Photo credit: Aart von Bezooyen

Technique

Any final words (on suspense)?

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Well, we’re winding down the series on suspense, tension and surprise. We’ve looked into assessing our stories, ratcheting up the tension and increasing the suspense. We’ve used lots and lots of resources (the most I have for any series), and I’ve talked a lot about things I’ve found in looking at my own work.

But, man, that still seems a little one-sided. I’d hate to leave you in suspense over your greatest suspense, tension or surprise issues—and I’d hate for all of us to miss out on the things you‘ve found to make your work better in these areas.

So, do you have any other questions or fixes on suspense, tension or surprise? (Comments and questions here may get “promoted” into posts of their own, so ask or share away—and be sure to put your link in the URL box!)

Photo credits: question—Svilen Mushkatov

Technique

Surprise fix: Telegraphing the pass (or not)

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This entry is part 7 of 26 in the series Tension, suspense and surprise

Yesterday, Deb Salisbury left a comment that’s worth discussing (or “foreblogging,” as I’ve heard it):

Sigh. I foreshadow until I’m afraid of telegraphing, but my crit partners complain about not seeing the surprise coming. I’m doing something wrong. ={

Perhaps, perhaps not, Deb. I’ve been there, too. (If one critique partner pegs the killer by page 30 and another says that the surprise reveal was unfulfilling because it wasn’t foreshadowed, which one is right?) Naturally, there are detriments to foreshadowing too heavily:

(You only have to watch 15 seconds to get the message; you don’t have to actually learn the bball technique.)

I watched a movie recently where every time a “little fact” was mentioned, I could see the plot twist they thought they were “foreshadowing.” (“I don’t swim,” says one character. I called it—she was going to fall out of the boat and the lead would have to save her. Took about 30 minutes to get there.) Maybe I’ve just seen too many movies and thought about these things too much, but total predictability is definitely not our goal as writers.

Or, to go back to our basketball analogy:

So, what’s the writing equivalent of a no-look pass? I don’t think a reader has to see a surprise coming. But I think that once the surprise is sprung, readers should be able to remember (ideally) or go back and find the clues you’ve been planted along the way.

In The Plot Thickens, Noah Lukeman gives one example of setting up a surprise—specifically, a secret:

For the secret to be used for suspenseful effect, we have to know there is a secret; Norman Bates’s mother is alluded to in shadowy fragments; in Casablanca Ilsa flat out reveals there is something she cannot tell Rick; in the whodunits, we know from the long looks the staff exchange with each other that someone is not saying something. (137)

Conversely, some surprises don’t actually have to be heavily foreshadowed: if you really can’t foreshadow because none of the POV characters have enough information or interactions to come across foreshadowing, or if the surprise is a complicating incident of a level of conflict.

Again, predictability is not a virtue in most storytelling. It’s not a bad thing to surprise your readers. But it is a delicate balance with foreshadowing and betrayal. Make sure your readers have all the pieces your characters do—but beating your readers over the head with the coming surprise is a good way to ruin it.

What do you think? What’s good foreshadowing for a surprise?