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Howdy everybody,
So I’m working through a very intense self edit of a novella I wrote and I thought I would just share some lessons I’ve learned.
First of all, it can take a while away from your work to help you see it with clear eyes. I had glaring problems in my writing style that I couldn’t see why I was writing it, but when it was all finished and I looked back on what I had written, they jumped out at me real quick.
Second, you probably “tell” a lot more than you think. At least I do. I found that my story sounded a lot like a historical account when read. It was a pretty interesting historical account, but it was still a historical account – only half story. You know you have this problem when you have something like, “John ordered his men to the spot where he stood and pointed to the map before him.” Really, it should read something like this, “‘Hey boys! take a look at this’ John hollered, tossing his cigar on the ground and slamming his finger onto the large map before him detailing the topography, water courses, and various towns of the surrounding regions.” In this second example, you feel a lot more like you’re actually there. Plus John actually seems like a real person. Characterization never happens during telling. The way I found out I was doing too much “telling” was that I realized larger parts of my writing had no point of view. If you tell the story through a character’s eyes it will be right there and tangible. You will have to show and telling will become less of a problem.
Another problem I had was having my characters use too many words. Now, this wasn’t a glaring problem at all, but scenes – especially action scenes – are ofter injured when a character uses even a few too many words. Sometimes the character won’t say everything that needs to be said, but what they did say could have been trimmed.
Another big point is that the five senses are vital. This goes along with “showing” instead of “telling”. Its one thing to say the scene is gory and quite another to describe it. One pitfall though is to focus just on the visuals – she wore this, his face looked like this, the battle had this obscure but highly accurate and poetic resemblance, things like that. What things taste like, smell like, feel like, and hear like are also very important. We should make a purpose goal of littering our literature with five thousand uses of the five senses because the five senses bring things to life.
And you know what? That’s all I’m thinking of right now, but hopefully this will be helpful to somebody. And the showing thing is so important. I have literally rewritten a few of my chapters almost completely just to fix that single problem. This is good though. I see great promise in my story now that I’m redoing it and I my sense for when I’m “telling” instead of “showing” is really improving. If you’ve got this same problem, join the club. We’ll get out of it eventually, and in the mean time, we can edit – so take that first draft!
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AWESOME TOPIC @DAEUS. I agree one hundred percent with everything you said. Do you mind of I ‘usurp’ 😉 your topic and share some things I’ve learned through editing as well?
@Daeus
This was totally, positively, VERY helpful! I should be finishing my WIP pretty soon (I’m hoping this summer), and it’s good to know about things to watch out for while editing…thanks for the tips!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
@kate-flournoy This topic is officially usurpable.
Signed and sealed, this the year of our lord 2016. (Big fat red seal goes here)
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*shrugs into huge furry usurper’s cape, swirls it dramatically, scowls at topic and adjusts massive golden crown* Topic— I have come to usurp you.
I guess the most important thing I’ve learned editing my WIP is a little difficult to put into words. The key symptom is over-describing things, but that’s not really the problem. Or rather it is, but it causes a deeper problem.
This may be a really dumb analogy, but here goes anyway. A good story should be like a sponge— sucking imagination OUT of the reader and investing it in the depths of the story.
That’s not how my first draft was. My first draft was more like a huge metal tank full to the brim with imagination— my imagination. The reader had to unlock the bolted storm-doors and dive in, immersing themselves as inert and passive receivers in what I had already provided in overwhelming abundance for them. Which may be all very well— but the experience will be nowhere near as invigorating and enjoyable as sitting down with a book and just pouring your imagination into the pages. There has to be material for imagination, yes, but if you want to invest your reader as wholly as possible in your story you shouldn’t provide every single teensy weensy detail, down to the tiny black beetle crawling up the trunk of the tree thirty five yards away.
Let’s put it this way— you are a thousand times more likely to remember something if you feel like you had a key role in bringing it about instead of just fitted together pieces someone else gave you.
The beauty of a good story is that it is unique and different to every single reader— the reader gets to interpret it however they choose. How can they do that if you’ve left no room for their imagination?@Daeus, YES, THIS IS SO HELPFUL. Thanks for sharing, Daeus! I struggle with “telling,” too, and it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one. 🙂 Thank goodness for first drafts! Because if you had to submit your first draft for publishing…yikes.
Thank you guys, this is very helpful. I tend to struggle with my characters blatantly telling everything in their dialogue, like Daeus said with his problem of having the characters talk too much, which basically makes the characters boring, uninteresting, and not anything like real people as they basically just state was is obvious to everyone all the time. Once this problem is fixed there is a major change to the characters as they A) become more life-like and B) help start to fix the showing vs. telling dilemma.
Theater kid. Currently depressed because I can't stop listening to sad musicals.
@kate-flournoy That’s a good point. Did you ever find any times where you surprised yourself with the discovery that you had been spoon feeding the reader? I mean, was there any really subtle example. I’m wondering because its those really sneaky mistakes that get you, and if you can fix them you’ll notice a big improvement. That’s why I’m always on the look out for sneaky mistakes.
By the way, one thing my edits are enforcing is my already strong notion that facial expressions and really all body language are super important. It’s all the same show/tell thing again. Saying that a character is bored really doesn’t mean the same thing as saying how they looked in a way that is obviously bored.
Oh, and another thing, reactions are super important. I used to like to have two characters talk back and forth for long enough that I could forget the tags, but now I’m changing my mind. If the conversation is at all worth writing, then the reactions characters give to what the other person says are just as important or even more.
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@christi-eaton That so true. I think that’s something most writer’s struggle with. Actually though, that’s not my main problem. My problem is just in the flow of the prose. It get’s stuck up with too many words. For instance, “While I acknowledge the situation we are in is dire, I remain unconvinced that the proper course of action is to eat carrot sticks.” That’s tumbly rump rump bleh prose. We can make it better. For instance, “We are in a dire situation, it is true, but are carrot sticks the solution?” That’s 15 words instead of 24. I know this reduces the word count, but you can raise that back up by doing more showing and less telling.
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@Daeus YES. I have surprised myself over and over again with the realization of what I was doing. Mostly it was with dialogue tags, actually— said furiously, shouted angrily, etc. etc. While there’s not anything particularly WRONG with those, it sounds better if I say ‘snapped’ or ‘screamed’, and it also lets the reader draw their own conclusions about the character’s present mood. A very obvious conclusion, but their own nonetheless. 😛
I don’t have as much trouble anymore about stating a character’s emotions— and you’re absolutely right, body language and reaction is incredibly important— but I still have to watch myself for adjectives that can be replaced. Also…
…actually— don’t even get me started on body language and reactions. I could go on and on and on and on forever. 😛 I think sometimes body language can completely replace dialogue tags.“You did WHAT?!” He slammed his fist down on the table. “Are you completely insane?”
Jake dropped his face in his hands with a sigh, wilting back in his chair. “What else could I do?”
Marcus rolled his eyes with a groan and flopped back into his own chair. “You might try— ya know— actually thinking for once?”This is an awesome topic, and that’s not anywhere near all I have to say on it, but I have to go now. *Noble, heroic face* I shall return.
@kate-flournoy Yes! I love replacing dialogue tags with body language.
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Yes @Daeus! Totally! The only thing is, you have to watch out for redundant flow:
He raked his fingers nervously through his hair. “So, this is just like the first one, only more complicated?”
She nodded. “Yup.”
He exhaled loudly. “Right.”
Her lips twisted in a little smile. “You okay?”
He swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, just great, thanks.”See, it’s a bit dull. It should be more like this:
He raked his fingers nervously through his hair. “So, this is just like the first one, only more complicated?”
She nodded. “Yup.”
He exhaled loudly, squinting down at the heavy sheaf of papers in his hand. “Right.”
“You okay?”
He swallowed. “Yeah.”Just break it up a bit.
Notice also with that last ‘you okay?’ I didn’t include the thing about her smiling, and that actually ties in with what I was talking about in my first post about overusing dialogue tags and spoon-feeding the reader. They should be well enough acquainted with the personality of the character to guess how she would say that, and her facial expression, and all that. You have to be careful with this, as there is an EXTREMELY fine line between too much and too little, but just keep it in mind.Okay okay let’s see… *digs deep into the innermost depths of her brain* What else is there?
Let’s start with something fairly simple, and see if I can explain it lucidly. Oh yeah! This is a nifty trick— taking simple, common words and giving them a greater depth peculiar to your story. Kind of like symbolism, except… not. A cross between symbolism and subtext. For instance, let’s say I have a character who pulls on his nose when he’s happy. It’s just a funny little mannerism he has. Once I take the first few times to establish that that’s what he does when he’s happy, I can just take that gesture next time and use it BY ITSELF to let the reader know the character is happy. You can do this with anything— I guess I’ll call it ‘The inside joke technique’.
See, good stories are layers and layers on top of layers of deeper meaning. This technique would be near the top— superficial, but it denotes something deeper. You can use this technique to introduce just about any emotion into a scene you want to. Just give the reader a reason to associate a particular emotion with a particular object or mannerism or characteristic mood, and the next time they see it they’ll get that ‘vibe’ again and comprehend on a deeper, more emotional level. It keeps the reader awake and alert and searching for inside jokes so as not to miss a single one, and also makes your story incredibly unique to your characters. Incredibly unique to ITSELF. Need I explain why that’s a good thing? 😉Very good points @kate-flournoy
I love that term, “The inside joke technique” That should be official terminology. It’s a wonderful trick. I do it sometimes, but I should really do it a lot more. It’s profoundly dickinsonian, but it doesn’t have to be plagiarism. I think it can be done in fewer words then he used but greater power.
Now here’s the really great thing about the inside joke technique. It can really add a punch to some not so jokish scenarios. For instance, let us say we have guy named Isaiah Nell who lives a tough life and often feels lonely and depressed, has no motivate, and only really has one friend who is very virtuous and kind but doesn’t have the ability to raise Isaiah Nell from his lowly condition. Now let us say that when Master Isaiah Nell is feeling really low he walks down the back alleys all alone with his hands folded behind his back and his head bent. Next, he meets this friend of his friend named Elsie Stay (Don’t laugh at the last name. It sounds right) and Elsie Stay can really touch his heart and enlivens his whole inner being and he falls in love with her and all that classic stuff.
…But then one day, just as it is looking like Nell is going to pull himself up out of his debts, he hears a knock on the door and his best friend tells him that Elsie was killed in a train accident. Now comes our stroke of genius. Nell does not pull his hair, he does not say anything, he does not cry, he just silently walks out the back door into the dark street ally. His hands are folded behind his back and his head is bowed.
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YES. Bingo. Perfect. That is one hundred percent what I’m talking about @Daeus.
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