You
probably won't be surprised to learn I read a lot of
unpublished manuscripts. I also read a lot of published
work. Are there some glaring differences between the two?
You betcha.
The fact is
most beginning writers write too much. That's okay for
the first draft but when it comes to editing, you need to
give that delete key a thorough work out!
Good
writing is about pacing, about taking the reader on a
journey and keeping in step with them along the way.
If you get
the pacing wrong, the reader will stumble and begin to
lose interest because it will seem you are more
interested in writing the words than telling the story or
relaying the information.
Here's some
tips on how to cut down on unnecessary verbiage!
The Art
of Description
With the
advent of global communication and visual media, we all
know what most things and even most places look like.
It's no longer necessary to spend more than a couple of
sentences establishing what things are, where scenes are
set and what the weather is like, if that's important for
mood.
Many
readers nowadays will actually skip descriptive passages
because they find them dull and interrupt the flow of the
text. So don't beat yourself up over getting all the
details across - that's what the reader's imagination is
for!
Qualify
That
Sometimes
we write scenes etc. we're not sure the reader will
understand - so we add extra words to explain ourselves,
resulting in more confusion than clarity. For instance,
look at this:
"With
the divorce weighing on his mind, and his fears about
losing his job, John was having difficulty deciding what
to do with himself. Could he face going out, knowing that
Pete would probably spend the evening ribbing him over
his his inability to get along with his boss and his
problems with his estranged wife?"
Clearly
this is clumsy and confusing to read. Much better to
remove the qualifiers and simplify:
"The
divorce was weighing on his mind - and his job. Did he
want to go out? John wasn't sure. Pete would probably
just want to rib him."
In the
above version, even though the propositions are only
loosely defined - the reader still gets it. You don't
always need to explain every little nuance to get a point
or two across. Quite the opposite in fact.
Room to
Breathe?
When you
write you make a contract with your reader - whom you
must regard as your equal. Not someone who is slow to
understand and needs to be carefully led, shown
everything and generally talked down to.
It's
perfectly okay to leave out obvious - and therefore
redundant - details. You don't always have to explain
exactly who said what, what happened where, why and how
long.
Too many
new writers clog up their stories with unnecessary
backstory, linking scenes, plot justifications and long
complicated explanations of things the reader already
regards as clear.
If you
write with honesty and intelligence, your reader knows
what and who you mean - when you over explain, you insult
the reader. Don't do it.
Direction
Quite often
writing suffers because the reader doesn't know where
you're going. They wonder why you're focussing on certain
characters and details - especially when you haven't
first hinted at the 'point' of your story.
When you
open a piece, you need a big 'sign' that tells the reader
you're going THIS WAY - so that the reader knows what to
expect along the way. You need to define your objectives
- your purpose - in some way on the first page.
For
instance, if you're writing a murder mystery, don't spend
the first chapter following the protagonist around doing
her laundry. Get on with the story and as soon as you
can, show us the body!
Play By
The Rules
Especially
in genre fiction, you have to adhere to certain rules,
because that's what the reader wants. Horror stories need
to be at least a little horrific - right from the start.
Romance requires that you have lovers at odds with each
other by page two. Science fiction and Fantasy require
the elements of their genres too.
Publishers
often say that, though many writers are good, they often
write themselves outside of any given genre in their
desire to be different or original - thereby, alas,
disqualifying themselves from publication!
Of course
it's important to be original - but if you can do that
within the confines your reader expects, your chances of
publication skyrocket.
Focus
What you're
looking for is sharp writing that relays the facts. When
you go back and edit for sense, go for simplicity rather
than exposition. If you waffle on about the intricacies
of conflicting thought processes or meander through long
descriptions of the countryside, you lose all sense of
tension.
Pick up any
popular novel. The best ones have no words that are about
writing. They're all about story. However concise.
Speech
tags
Okay.
Speech tags - you know all the 'he said, she cried, they
exclaimed blah de blah' - I'll keep this advice simple
and precise. Unless you're writing children's fiction,
lose them. As many as you can. It's the way of the modern
writer.
The way to
do it is to use other, more subtle ways of suggesting who
is saying what. It's easily done, it just requires a
little thought.
You can
refer to character's actions just before or after
dialogue, or use different styles to suggest different
people.
Just as an
experiment, try editing out all of the speech tags from
your next MS. I think you'll be surprised and...master
this technique and publishers will love you for it!
Adverbs
Yep - we
all know we're not supposed to use them, especially after
a speech tag. They really are mostly redundant and add
nothing to the story. Repeat to yourself three times
before bedtime: I will try to edit out every word that
ends in 'ly'! (I just noticed there are two in this
paragraph - oops!)
Well I
could go on like this for hours - 'do this, do that,
don't do that' etc. - I take writing very seriously, as
I'm sure you've guessed. But I hope these few tips will
help you the next time you edit your final draft.
The general
rule, by the way, is that at least 20% of your MS is
probably surplus to requirements! And that goes for all
of us!
