novel writing

How To Avoid Redundancy

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is Redundancy?

Writing is called redundant when it is repetitious or over uses words, phrases or sentences to express one idea. A synonym of redundancy is pleonasm.

A way to determine if a phrase or sentence is redundant is to ask if the phrase/sentence conveys the same meaning without a particular part.

Let’s look at some examples and see why each is redundant. First, from the human body:

~ John nodded his head.

~ John blinked his eyes.

~ John shrugged his shoulders.

Of course he nodded his head, blinked his eyes, shrugged his shoulders. What other body part can a person nod, blink or shrug?  “John nodded” or “John blinked” or “John shrugged” convey the same meaning with fewer words.

From action:

~ John shouted loudly.

~ John whispered softly.

~ John ran swiftly.

In each case, the addition of an adverb doesn’t add value to the sentence because it means the same thing as the verb. Can you shout any way but loudly?

From motion:

~ John climbed up the stairs.

~ John descended down the stairs.

~ John rose up from the chair.

~ John sank down into the water.

Poor John. All those extra ups and downs must be exhausting.

From common phrases – Since John is tired, can you run a redundancy check on the pleonasms below? [wink]

The end result….repeated over and over….past experience….new innovations….asked the question….unexpected emergency…true facts….curious in nature…few in number…I myself…advancing forward…retreating back


An unexpected emergency is redundant. An unexpected pregnancy is not.

A more complex form of redundancy occurs when a writer repeats an idea by phrasing it in multiple ways. Sometimes this is a style choice, and the writer is using emphasis for effect.

For example, this writer wants to let the reader know a room is dark. Really dark. Soooo dark. So she writes it and repeats it and repeats it again:

“John stumbled into the room. It was dark as pitch. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. There was no light whatsoever.”

The sentences describing the darkness don’t sound alike, but all three are about the absence of light, couched in different words. Is that necessary? Is the dark room important enough to need three sentences to impress it upon the reader?

If you’re unsure about a section, read it aloud. If by sentence number three, you are tempted to yell, “Okay, I get it! The room is dark!” your writing is redundant.

Redundancy clutters your writing and adds to the word count without adding anything of value to the story.

Check your writing. Have you said something over and over, and again and again?

Ramona

 

How To Write a Reaction

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is a Reaction?

A reaction is a response to an occurrence.

A reaction happens in three steps: Action, Instinct, Response. An event occurs. Instinct kicks in first. A reasoned response follows.

Let’s use an illustrative example, from my pretend novel Bad Sale:

Richard walks through his corn field, checking the crop. Nearby, a gunshot cracks off. Richard jumps at the sound. He crouches down and stares at the treeline, wondering who is shooting at his corn field?

Now let’s deconstruct:

Line 1 sets the scene (Richard walking)

Line 2 is the action (gunshot)

Line 3 is instinct (jumping in surprise)

Line 4 is Richard’s reasoned response (crouching for protection then wonder what’s happening)

In fiction, there are two reasons for this lesson in physiology.

First, how a character responds to the unexpected shows something about him. Richard, for instance, is a private citizen. He’s surprised by the gunshot and crouches, for his own safety. He wonders why there is gunfire because, apparently, it’s not a common occurrence.

If Richard lived in a crime-ridden city, his instinct would not change–he’d still be startled. His response would depend on his life experience. That’s what puts the reason in his reasoned response. He might hit the deck; he might jump into a doorway; he might reach for his own weapon. Instead of wondering why there is gunfire, he might wonder if it hit someone he knows.

If Richard is a police officer or soldier, his physical response would be the result of training: instead of cowering, he might seek cover or charge toward the gunfire; or he might command people around him to get down or hide.

How a character reacts to a surprise or event is full of clues about the character.

The second reason a fiction writer should understand the order of reaction is to understand what happens when the order is disrupted.

For instance, I often see a paragraph like this:

~ Jessica jogs through her quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. Suddenly, a neighbor’s dog charges toward the street. How did it get loose? It’s always chained. Jessica stumbles at its ferocious bark. She rights herself and sprints away.

See the problem?

Line 1 sets the scene (Jessica jogging)

Line 2 is the action (dog charging)

Line 3 is part of the reasoned response (asking why question)

Line 3 is instinct (Jessica stumbles)

Line 4 is part 2 of her reasoned response (recover and run away)

By asking questions before she responds, Jessica pauses the flow of action. When a dog charges, do you run first or wonder first? On the page, she delays her immediate, instinctive physical response. The first question gives the dog time to catch her. A second question means the dog has latched onto her ankle. If she asked another one, the dog would be gnawing on her leg.

As a reader, I’m wondering why Jessica is asking questions when there’s a dog charging at her. I’m shaking the book, saying, “Run, Jessica, run!”

Think about it. When you are surprised, what do you do?

First, you react instinctively (jerk, jump, stumble, yell.)

Then you respond to protect yourself (duck, cower, raise your hands, cover your ears.)

Then you ask questions (Who let the dog out? Who’s shooting in my corn field?)

This is how it happens in real life. This is how it should happen in fiction. If you allow your characters to ask questions first and respond second, they’ll get dog bit.

Have you written a character whose life experience or training has altered their response to danger?

Ramona

 

How To Write a Dialogue Tag

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is a Dialogue Tag?

A dialogue tag is used to identify a speaker in a written conversation. It is the “he said” or “she said” that follows the spoken words.

Let’s examine a correct dialogue tag. Here a simple formula: Open quotation mark + spoken words + comma + close quotation marks + speaker + verb for said + period.

Example: “This is how you write a dialogue tag,” Ramona said.

For a longer sentence, the dialogue tag may be inserted in the middle, to ID the speaker while she is still speaking. The formula begins the same way. After the verb for said comes another comma + open quotation mark + spoken words + period/exclamation point/question mark + close quotation mark.

Example: “This is one way, ” Ramona said, “but this is not the only way.”

If the spoken words are a question or a shout, the comma is replaced…

…by a question mark: “Is this how you do it?” Ramona asked.

…or an exclamation point: “Yes, it is!” Ramona cried.

Sounds straightforward, right? Yet, errors in dialogue tags are common and one of the easiest ways a writer can ruin her manuscript’s clean copy.

How do you mess up a dialogue tag? Let us count the ways:

1. Instead of a said verb, replace with an action verb. What this does is turn the dialogue into a standalone sentence. That requires it be treated as a standalone sentence, not as a part of a sentence. This is not incorrect. The mess up happens (often!) when the writer misuses the punctuation before the dialogue tag–keeps the comma.

Incorrect: “Writers get this wrong so often,” Ramona shook her head. “It’s a shame because it hurts credibility.”

Correct:: “Writers get this wrong so often.” Ramona shook her head. “It’s a shame because it hurts credibility.”

If what follows the dialogue is not a dialogue tag but instead shows an action by the speaker, the spoken words must end in a period, exclamation point, or question mark–punctuation that ends the sentence.

2. Use a verb that’s not a speaking verb.

Incorrect:  “Writers try to make me speak without using my mouth,” Ramona shrugged. “It happens all the time.”

Correct: “Writers try to make me speak without using my mouth.” Ramona shrugged. “It happens all the time.”

Shrugged is not a way of speaking. Nor is sighed, glared, laughed, chuckled, yawned, nodded, pointed, hit, conspired. Speaking verbs are said asked, yelled, shouted, stated, blurted, demanded, guessed, cried, inquired.

Said is by far the most popular speaking verb. It requires little to no processing by the reader. It performs the very simple but important task of helping to identify the speaker. You can’t go wrong with said.

You can go wrong if you try to get too fancy and use anything but said. When you start with stated and moved into shared, confided, noted, offered, explained, ejaculated…if you get to ejaculated, you’ve gone too far. Go back to said.

3.  Overwriting by overloading with unnecessary adverbs.

An occasional adverb is acceptable~ “I can’t believe  you told him my weight,” Louise said angrily.

But the adverb must match the dialogue ~“I can’t believe you told him my weight,” Louise said proudly.~ Huh?

Examples of unnecessary adverbs:

~ “Cut it out!” Louise shouted loudly. – How else can you shout, but loudly?

~ “Stop it!” Louise whispered softly. – Same as above. Can you whisper any way but softly?

 

Correct use of grammar doesn’t catch an editor’s eye. Grammar is meant to be blind. When it’s misused, the editor and reader will notice. A wrongly placed comma or annoying adverb is not the kind of notice you’re looking for when you have two characters conversing.

Ramona

 

 

How To Stay in Point of View

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is Point of View?

Point of View (POV) is the presentation of the story through a narrator. A story can be told through a character, several characters, or through an unnamed narrator. POV can be presented in 1st person (“I”), 3rd person limited (“he” “she”), or omniscient (narrator who knows all).

What is a POV character? The character telling the story in a given scene.

What is a POV slip? A slip in POV occurs when the POV character reveals information he or she cannot possibly know.

A POV character shares his own thoughts, feelings and reactions. The POV character may guess or surmise about what’s going on around him, based on his five senses. What a POV character cannot do is share what he does not see, hear or know, nor can he relate the thoughts and feelings of other characters. When a POV character relates something outside of his knowledge, it’s a POV slip.

To remain in POV, pretend to open the top of your character’s head. Climb inside. Now, relate only what this character sees; what this character hears; what this character smells; what this character feels, both physically and emotionally; what this character thinks.

You cannot report on an act that occurs in another room, because your POV character cannot see through walls.

You cannot report on what the bad guy is thinking, because your POV character cannot read minds.

You cannot report on what a love interest is feeling, because your POV character is not an empath.

Here’s a POV slip, with Richard narratoring in 3rd person POV:

~ Richard crept down the hallway clutching a fireplace poker. In the barn, the bad guys stuffed hay into the backpack to hide the bomb detonator. Richard stopped at the glass beside the front door and stared out the barn. ~

How can Richard know what the bad guys are doing in the barn, if he’s creeping around the house? He can’t see them and he’s not a mind-reader.

Here’s how Richard can guess or surmise what he cannot know, and thus alert the reader to the action in the story:

~ Richard crept through the house clutching a fireplace poker. At the front door, he crouched low and peered through the glass. It was windy out. He could see bits of hay swirling around the open barn door.  What were these guys doing with his hay? ~

Example 2, with Richard narrating in 1st person:

~ My heart slammed in my chest. In front of me, the bad guy felt no fear at all. This farmer was a halfwit, nothing to worry about.

How can  Richard know what the bad guy thinks of him, if he’s not privy to the bad guy’s thought processes?

~ My heart slammed in my chest. The bad guy facing me looked cool as a cucumber. His expression moved into a smirk, as if he thinks I’m some halfwit farmer. ~

“Looked” and “as if” are interpretations. Seeing the hay and assuming at the bad guys were doing something bad with it is a conclusion. POV characters are allowed to interpret, assume and conclude what they don’t know, but they cannot present it as fact.

Who is your POV character? Have you climbed into his or her head for each scene to take a look around?

Ramona

 

How To Not Get Published

by Ramona DeFelice Long

The following observations come from working with authors who do get published, and authors who do not get published.  These have nothing to do with talent, luck, money, or good looks.

1 ~  The simplest How To Not Get Published is to never complete a product you can market for publication. One example of this is Better Idea Syndrome. This is how it works: You latch onto a great idea for a novel and write one hundred pages in a flurry of enthusiasm. Then you think of a better idea for a novel, so you put aside unfinished novel #1 and write one hundred pages of your better idea. Then you get an even better idea for a novel, so you set unfinished novel #2 on top of unfinished novel #1, and write one hundred pages of your even better idea. Every time you get a new—and, of course, better—idea, put aside your work in progress. Doing this insures you will never complete a novel, hence you’ll never have a completed novel to submit to a publisher.

2 ~  If you are not plagued by the Better Idea Demon from #1, another way to Not Get Published is to spend all of your writing hours blogging about your journey to publication, or some other subject that is not writing your novel. A close cousin to this is to spend all of your available writing time building your author platform via Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, Google+, and so on, which is also not writing your novel. You may write about your novel in progress, and about yourself as an aspiring novelist, but you don’t actually write the actual novel.

3 ~ Next, eschew the value of good grammar and technical skills.  No one is a perfect typist.  A passive construction never killed anybody. Running Spell Check is so tedious. And seriously, does anyone really and truly get deeply bothered by a few terribly necessary adverbs? In fact, ignore craft altogether. You’ve been writing since you were five years old and you read all the time. It’s the story that matters, right? So write away but don’t let typos, misspelled words, pronoun confusion, or sentence structure slow you down. When your manuscript is returned with comments about clean copy, be sure to respond with, “That’s the editor’s job.”

4 ~ Another handy way to Not Get Published is to embrace the following mantra: “It’s just fiction.” This is a professional disclaimer that allows you to make mistakes. A great way to do this one is to write a crime novel but ignore laws, legal procedures, and how real police conduct real police work. Readers just want the bad guys to get caught. Coincidences, mind-reading, superpowers, implausibilities, characters acting out of character, and violating the civil rights of anyone who gets in the way of the cop character–and your plot–are fine in “it’s just fiction” land.  If a beta reader or editor mentions mistakes or suggests fact checking, they’re obviously too uptight.  You serve up justice. You’re just not that picky about the ingredients.

5 ~ The final way How To Not Get Published is to never submit. Submitting to the wrong market also works, but never letting your manuscript see the light of day is a 100% surefire way to remain unpublished. Save your manuscript to a flash drive and hang it around your neck. Let it live there, and you have the least risky, emotionally secure, ego-saving way How to Not Get Published.

Now, if you are one of those driven people who insists on completing a manuscript, polishing it and having it critiqued, sending it out to agents or editors, and putting blogging and promoting secondary to finishing your work in progress, then you have greatly harmed your chances to Not Get Published. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you are really stubborn about it, you might even go here and take the Sacred Writing Time pledge.

 

Ramona

Tomorrow’s topic: Sunday is a day of rest. See you Monday for How To Stay in POV.

How To Write a Thematic Statement

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is a Thematic Statement?

Robert McKee (STORY) calls it the Controlling Idea.  John Truby (THE ANATOMY OF STORY) calls it the Theme Line.  I call it a Thematic Statement. It is a sentence that takes a broad theme and condenses it to give a particular story a particular meaning.

Theme is the big concept of your story: love, honor, justice, betrayal, loyalty, family, courage, duty.  A Thematic Statement refines the broad idea to address   your Story Question. In doing so,  the Thematic Statement guides your characters in every choice they make and helps you, the writer, by providing a moral framework.

A Thematic Statement explains WHY characters act as they do.

Examples:

~In the Harry Potter series, a theme is destiny. Harry is given two gifts: the gift of great talent and the gift of life. He’s the boy who lived. But these gifts are also burdens because he is destined to use his talents to save the lives of other people. So a thematic statement might be, “When your life and talents are a gift, it’s both a burden and a duty to use your life and talents for the good of others .”

~John Grisham’s THE CLIENT examines people in positions of trust, some by choice and some not. A thematic statement for THE CLIENT might be, “A person unfairly put in a position of trust might have to discard that position for his own survival.”

~For my pretend story BAD SALE, the thematic statement is, “An honorable person acts within his definition of honor.” The farmer’s sense of honor will be tested when  his desire to help his friend clashes with his desire to be a good citizen.

A Thematic Statement is the writer’s compass to what the characters consider right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. Once this is established, the characters act accordingly.

In other words, a Thematic Statement is the conceptual soul of your story.

What thematic statement can be applied to your work in progress?

Ramona

Tomorrow’s topic: How To Not Get Published

How To Write a Story Question

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is a Story Question?

The Story Question—sometimes called the Story Problem—is the core question to be answered in the story.

Answering the Story Question is the goal of the primary plot line. It’s what drives the characters to act as they do. It’s the story’s catalyst–essentially, why the story exists.

The Story Question itself may never appear in the story as an actual question, so why is it important to identify it? Because it provides a goal, and a goal offers the characters a path for action. Without a goal, characters will wander willy-nilly. No one wants to read willy-nilly.

Once the Story Question lays out the path ahead, the writing should follow it. Use the Story Question as an aid to stay on track. If any portion of your work in progress is not directly or indirectly tied to the Story Question–through the plot,  a character’s background, or a situation in the setting–it probably does not belong in the story.

Writing out your Story Question, and maybe putting it a prominent place as a reminder, can keep you from meandering.

Here’s a sampling of Story Questions, by genre:

For a mystery, a Story Question might be: “Who killed JR?”

For a thriller, a Story Question might be: “Who is trying to kill JR?” or “Why is Whoever trying to kill JR?”

For a romance, a Story Question might be: “Can JR overcome his emotional baggage and find love?”

For a romantic suspense, a Story Question might be: “How will JR survive this conflict while falling/staying in love?”

For an quest, a Story Question might be: “Can JR locate the last two legendary googoomama birds and save the species from extinction?”

For an adventure story, a Story Question might be: “Will JR and his young son survive a plane crash in the Sierra Nevada Mountains?”

For a women’s fiction novel, a Story Question might be: “Can JR save her drug-addicted sister without ruining her own life?”

For a middle grade novel, a Story Question might be: “Can JR befriend the mean girls without becoming one?”

For a YA novel, a Story Question might be: “Can JR pursue his musical talents despite his family’s disapproval?”

For a young reader novel, a Story Question might be: “Can JR outsmart the bully on the bus?”

For a non-fiction, a Story Question might be: “How can JR’s personal journey in this subject help others?”

{JR is unisex, by the way.  Always up to something.}

By the end of the story, the Story Question should be answered fully, logically, and hopefully in a way that allowed the characters to grow and the reader to be entertained and emotionally satisfied.

Have you identified a Story Problem that lays out the path for your work in progress?

Ramona

Tomorrow’s topic – How To Write a Thematic Statement

How To Write a Log Line

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarWhat is a LOG LINE?

A  log line is a one sentence description that gives an appealing and succinct summary of your story.  Think of the blurbs in TV Guide or Publisher’s Lunch.

A log line is meant to share the story basics but also to provide an emotional hook.

An easy formula for a log line for fiction is this:

Name of story is a word count + genre about a main character who must Story Question before consequences if Story Question is not solved.

For non-fiction, try this:

Name of story is a word count +genre that verb such as explores, uncovers, explains, investigates the subject of book.

Because a log line is so short, each word is important and should perform multiple tasks. Let’s take a look at a sample log line:

“BAD SALE is a 94,000 word thriller about a farmer whose life falls apart after he is tricked by a boyhood friend into buying bomb-making supplies at the hardware store.”

The characters are Farmer and Boyhood Friend. The noun “farmer” tells this person’s job, but it also implies he’ll be a hard-working, honest, family man because that’s the general perception of farmers. “Boyhood friend” implies loyalty and history between the two. It’s not known if this friendship has been steady or if this is a friend from childhood who has reappeared in Farmer’s life.

“Tricked” implies deception, but the intent is not clear, so it leaves something to the imagination. It’s stronger than “fooled” but not as blatant as “coerced”.

The phrase “life falls apart” is vague but conveys the idea that havoc will fall upon the main character and he will be unable to stop it. This is the emotional hook. We should care when a good person is damaged by a supposed friend.

A log line is used in written queries and verbal pitches. It’s also a handy answer to the question, “What are you writing?”

Do you have a log line you’d like to share or show off?

Ramona

A Writer’s Happy Place

by Ramona DeFelice Long

It’s 5:19 in the morning, and I am at my writing desk. Since it’s still dark out, I have a candle lit and my lava lamp is fired up, providing enough light to see the keys but not enough to destroy the ambiance of darkness. I also have a vase full of daffodils and trimmings from a Japanese Spindle by the window.

The house is quiet. I have coffee. I am in my writer’s happy place.

Last week, after I posted about immersing myself into a new writing project while at an artists’ colony, my friend and fellow writer Leslie Budewitz asked, “Any tricks for recreating that balance now that you’re back home? Always the post vacation or retreat challenge….” Continue reading “A Writer’s Happy Place” →

12 Ways to Improve Your Writing in 2012

by Ramona DeFelice Long

Here are some easy actions and activities than can sharpen your skill set. Most are free. All you need is willingness and an open mind.

1.  Attend a live reading! Hearing an author read their prose or poetry aloud is a special treat—and it helps you, a writer, hear emphasis on words or dialogue that’s not possible on a printed page. Many writers like to begin with an anecdote about the story, and that’s an added bonus. In my neck of the woods, we have a 30 year tradition called 2nd Saturday Poets, but we also have library readings, poetry slams, book talks at bookstores, visiting author series at the university. Attending shows your support for the local arts scene. We all want to support the arts, right?

2.  Read your work out loud. This is a follow-up to the above. Reading aloud helps you hear the rhythm of the writing. If you construct short sentence after short sentence, a live read will help you hear if your prose imitates Hemingway’s or if it sounds choppy and monotonous. Reading aloud also helps catch awkward lines and clunky dialogue.

3.  Try out an online class.  There’s a plethora of learning happening in cyberspace, so you never need to leave your house or get out of your jammies to polish your skills in characterization, active scenes, or figuring out what the heck is subtext. Professional organizations (RWA, Sisters in Crime, Pennwriters), writing services and private editors (ahem!) offer courses that run the range from one day to months. Give one a whirl.

4.  Free Write. A free write is an informal gathering of writers who meet to practice their writing, often through guided activities and prompts.  In 2011, I helped to facilitate a monthly free write at the county library. We met for three hours and combined prompts, sharing and quiet writing time. It was great fun to write on the spot, and to see how others responded to the same prompts and guides.

5.  Join a supportive group—a face to face group, an online forum, a Facebook writers group. This is to combat the whole “writing is lonely” thing, but also to give you a peek into how other writers operate. Talking shop or talking out problems can rev your creative engines, or make the struggle seem less isolating. And if there is good news, it’s always nice to have a cheering squad.

6.  Deconstruct movies and TV shows. Learn the meaning of a “cold opening” or a “meet cute.” Watch the clock and see how a TV drama breaks off at commercial (as you would with a chapter ending) or how a 2-hour movie will have a significant plot development every twenty minutes.  Imagine this TV show or movie as a novel and how it would be narrated, plotted, and told.

7.  Choose a favorite author. Think about why you like what this writer does—what in your chosen author’s body of work speaks to you as a reader. Jot down a few memorable scenes or favorite  plot developments.  Analyze—what’s so special about this writer’s work? What pulled you in? What did you admire? What was your emotional reaction?

8.  Challenge yourself and try to write something new: flash, poetry, a memoir piece, a story told in second person. Do this every few months.

9.  Think of a book you hated from school. (Mine would be Wuthering Heights. Blech. What do people see in Heathcliff? I don’t get it.) Read it now, with an open mind.  What did you dislike about it when you were younger? Do you still dislike this now?

10.  Get into the habit of running the Spelling & Grammar function when you shut down your work-in-progress for the day. Notice what pops up—typos? Sentence structure problems? Fragments? Improper word choice? Pay attention to the habitual problems in your work. Sometimes all it takes to repair a bad habit is to recognize that habit exists. Spell & Gram is a free, easy, and readily available resource to help you find those habits. Make using it your new habit.

11.  Read every day.

12.  Write every day.

 Best of luck in your writing endeavors in 2012!

Ramona