Showing posts with label overwriting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overwriting. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 4

Too much of a good thing.... (photo by jycleaver, morguefile)
Dear Editor-on-Call,

I was just asked to beta read a piece from a very good writer friend and lo and behold, she is an overwriter. I am, too, to some extent, but this is excessive. Of course, I want to be gentle when I send this back, but if I was completely honest, I would be bleeding all over the page. Personally, I relish crits that I get back covered in red, because I see it as an awesome learning experience, but others are quite a bit more sensitive than I am. I'm worried that she is one of the sensitive ones. Egads, I don't know what to do here. Do you have any advice?

Sincerely,
Wannabe Gracious

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Gracious,

I've faced this issue before, too. And I'm a recovering overwriter myself. I'd suggest refraining from line editing the whole piece at this stage. General comments and especially questions will be more helpful to your friend, and less likely to wound. Something along the lines of "you have some very vivid descriptions here, and some that I think would feel stronger if you pared them back," then line edit a sentence to show what you mean. In areas where she describes the same thing six ways, try a margin question: which of these best captures your idea here? You can also recommend that she take a look at Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Manuscript Makeover, which will provide great guidance for the revision process.

Especially encourage her to trust the reader more, and to strive for clarity and simplicity. Be sure to sandwich the idea of "you need to trim and simplify" with encouragement about what she does right: her characters are likeable, her emotions real, her humor funny, her plot attention-grabbing and the like. Overwriting is so often a sign of lack of confidence. Build her up in the right way, and she'll find the courage to trim.

Any other sage words for this advice-seeker? How do you typically approach critiquing an overwriter? 

 Have an editing or revision question? Ask away. I'll tackle it in a future post.

Tips for Critiquing an Overwriter

Tuesday, November 04, 2014 Laurel Garver
Too much of a good thing.... (photo by jycleaver, morguefile)
Dear Editor-on-Call,

I was just asked to beta read a piece from a very good writer friend and lo and behold, she is an overwriter. I am, too, to some extent, but this is excessive. Of course, I want to be gentle when I send this back, but if I was completely honest, I would be bleeding all over the page. Personally, I relish crits that I get back covered in red, because I see it as an awesome learning experience, but others are quite a bit more sensitive than I am. I'm worried that she is one of the sensitive ones. Egads, I don't know what to do here. Do you have any advice?

Sincerely,
Wannabe Gracious

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Gracious,

I've faced this issue before, too. And I'm a recovering overwriter myself. I'd suggest refraining from line editing the whole piece at this stage. General comments and especially questions will be more helpful to your friend, and less likely to wound. Something along the lines of "you have some very vivid descriptions here, and some that I think would feel stronger if you pared them back," then line edit a sentence to show what you mean. In areas where she describes the same thing six ways, try a margin question: which of these best captures your idea here? You can also recommend that she take a look at Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Manuscript Makeover, which will provide great guidance for the revision process.

Especially encourage her to trust the reader more, and to strive for clarity and simplicity. Be sure to sandwich the idea of "you need to trim and simplify" with encouragement about what she does right: her characters are likeable, her emotions real, her humor funny, her plot attention-grabbing and the like. Overwriting is so often a sign of lack of confidence. Build her up in the right way, and she'll find the courage to trim.

Any other sage words for this advice-seeker? How do you typically approach critiquing an overwriter? 

 Have an editing or revision question? Ask away. I'll tackle it in a future post.

Thursday, June 27

Hi Friends! I am still in the UK, so I've asked the multi-talented Jessica Bell to swing by and talk about her latest writing resource book. I think it's so wonderfully helpful I wrote the endorsement for back cover! Onto our guest post...

by Jessica Bell

Writers constantly have rules thrown at them left, right, and center. Show, don’t tell! Stop using so many dialogue tags! More sensory detail! More tension! Speed up the pace! Yada yada yada ... it can become overwhelming, yes? I used to feel overwhelmed by it all too. In fact, I still do sometimes. It’s hard enough to get the words on the page, let alone consider how to put them there.

In Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, she says that in order not to be overwhelmed, a writer needs to focus on short assignments. She refers to the one-inch picture frame on her desk and how that little picture frame reminds her to focus on bite-sized pieces of the whole story. Basically, if you focus on one small thing at a time, the story will eventually come together to create a whole. I believe the same applies to learning the craft of writing. If writers focus on one aspect of the craft at a time, the process will seem less daunting and piece by piece it will come together.

My name’s Jessica Bell, and my own struggles with feeling overwhelmed inspired me to write the Writing in a Nutshell Series of pocket-sized writing guides. So you can learn to hone your craft in bite-sized, manageable pieces. In the first book of the series, I focused on demonstrating how to transition “telling” into “showing.” In Adverbs and Clichés in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Subversions of Adverbs and Clichés into Gourmet Imagery, I deal with another of the most common criticisms aspiring writers face: to absolutely avoid adverbs and clichés like the plague. But see, right now, I just used one of each. I also used a couple in the first two paragraphs of this post because they come naturally, and we utilize them frequently in everyday speech. But in fiction, too many adverbs and clichés weaken your prose. It’s considered “lazy writing,” because it means we don’t have to show what’s happening.

If your manuscript has too many adverbs and clichés, it most likely means that the emotion you felt while writing it is not going to translate to the reader in the same way. So how exactly can we approach the subversion of adverbs and clichés? For starters, play around with simile and metaphor when you’re trying to convey emotion, and for action, use strong verbs to show it happening in real time.

The key? Think smaller details rather than the bigger picture.

Need some help and inspiration?

In Adverbs and Clichés in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Subversions of Adverbs and Clichés into Gourmet Imagery, you will find thirty-four examples of prose which clearly demonstrate how to turn those pesky adverbs and clichés into vivid and unique imagery. Dispersed throughout are blank pages to craft your own unique examples. Extra writing prompts are also provided at the back of the book.

“Jessica Bell's latest pocket guide, Adverbs and Clichés in a Nutshell, will inspire you to leave bland behind and pursue your creative best. With force and clarity, she demonstrates how adverbs and clichés hobble vibrant writing. She then marks a course toward unique expression and provides workouts that will help writers at every level develop a distinctive voice.”  ~Laurel Garver, freelance editor, author of Never Gone and Muddy-Fingered Midnights

Purchase links:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Ca | Kobo


Bio: The Australian-native contemporary fiction author and poet, Jessica Bell, also makes a living as an editor and writer for global ELT publishers (English Language Teaching), such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, Macmillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.

She is the co-publishing editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and the director of the Homeric Writers’ Retreat and Workshop on the Greek island of Ithaca.

For more information about Jessica please visit:
Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Too many adverbs and clichés in your writing? I've got just the fix for you.

Thursday, June 27, 2013 Laurel Garver
Hi Friends! I am still in the UK, so I've asked the multi-talented Jessica Bell to swing by and talk about her latest writing resource book. I think it's so wonderfully helpful I wrote the endorsement for back cover! Onto our guest post...

by Jessica Bell

Writers constantly have rules thrown at them left, right, and center. Show, don’t tell! Stop using so many dialogue tags! More sensory detail! More tension! Speed up the pace! Yada yada yada ... it can become overwhelming, yes? I used to feel overwhelmed by it all too. In fact, I still do sometimes. It’s hard enough to get the words on the page, let alone consider how to put them there.

In Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, she says that in order not to be overwhelmed, a writer needs to focus on short assignments. She refers to the one-inch picture frame on her desk and how that little picture frame reminds her to focus on bite-sized pieces of the whole story. Basically, if you focus on one small thing at a time, the story will eventually come together to create a whole. I believe the same applies to learning the craft of writing. If writers focus on one aspect of the craft at a time, the process will seem less daunting and piece by piece it will come together.

My name’s Jessica Bell, and my own struggles with feeling overwhelmed inspired me to write the Writing in a Nutshell Series of pocket-sized writing guides. So you can learn to hone your craft in bite-sized, manageable pieces. In the first book of the series, I focused on demonstrating how to transition “telling” into “showing.” In Adverbs and Clichés in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Subversions of Adverbs and Clichés into Gourmet Imagery, I deal with another of the most common criticisms aspiring writers face: to absolutely avoid adverbs and clichés like the plague. But see, right now, I just used one of each. I also used a couple in the first two paragraphs of this post because they come naturally, and we utilize them frequently in everyday speech. But in fiction, too many adverbs and clichés weaken your prose. It’s considered “lazy writing,” because it means we don’t have to show what’s happening.

If your manuscript has too many adverbs and clichés, it most likely means that the emotion you felt while writing it is not going to translate to the reader in the same way. So how exactly can we approach the subversion of adverbs and clichés? For starters, play around with simile and metaphor when you’re trying to convey emotion, and for action, use strong verbs to show it happening in real time.

The key? Think smaller details rather than the bigger picture.

Need some help and inspiration?

In Adverbs and Clichés in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Subversions of Adverbs and Clichés into Gourmet Imagery, you will find thirty-four examples of prose which clearly demonstrate how to turn those pesky adverbs and clichés into vivid and unique imagery. Dispersed throughout are blank pages to craft your own unique examples. Extra writing prompts are also provided at the back of the book.

“Jessica Bell's latest pocket guide, Adverbs and Clichés in a Nutshell, will inspire you to leave bland behind and pursue your creative best. With force and clarity, she demonstrates how adverbs and clichés hobble vibrant writing. She then marks a course toward unique expression and provides workouts that will help writers at every level develop a distinctive voice.”  ~Laurel Garver, freelance editor, author of Never Gone and Muddy-Fingered Midnights

Purchase links:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Ca | Kobo


Bio: The Australian-native contemporary fiction author and poet, Jessica Bell, also makes a living as an editor and writer for global ELT publishers (English Language Teaching), such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, Macmillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.

She is the co-publishing editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and the director of the Homeric Writers’ Retreat and Workshop on the Greek island of Ithaca.

For more information about Jessica please visit:
Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Monday, January 21

Today is my final installment of my series on "Reducing Bloat / Revising Overwriting."

Overly elaborate diction is what most think of when they hear the term "overwriting." I'd argue it's just one facet of a tendency to go thick, lush and heavy-handed when drafting. The trick is to identify and correct it during revision.

Advanced vocabulary
Your characters' word choices show us who they are, so it's important to be accurate. Generally word choices should be consistent with a character's age, level of education and socio-economic status. Just as a fifth grader wouldn't discuss post-feminist hegemony, a college professor wouldn't call his enemy "stinkypants."

There are exceptions, however. You might sprinkle in words like "indubitably" and "elementary" to show that your fifth grader fancies himself an amateur sleuth like Sherlock Holmes. A social climber might adopt fancy lingo but misuse it. A grade-skipping child prodigy would wield her vocabulary like a weapon.

As you revise, be willing to question your word choices. Advanced vocabulary can communicate some things you don't intend. It gives the impression that you, the writer, are insecure or a bit out of touch. It can also taint your characters with a popular stereotype: the evil genius whose intelligence is paired with heartless ambition, or the socially awkward hopeless nerd whose head is stuffed with useless knowledge.

Literary devices
As I wrote in this post, sound devices can be an effective tool to make your work sing. But if you're too heavy-handed, it sounds silly or just plain annoying. Generally assonance (repeated internal vowel sounds) is less jarring than alliteration (repeated initial consonant sounds) or rhyming, so you can be a little freer with it.

How heavy is too heavy? I don't have a hard and fast rule. If sound is a big piece of your style, you'll have a hard time identifying overkill. Ask three or four trustworthy readers who get your intent to help you trim all but the best of your devices.

Metaphor and simile can quickly become overdone. Beware of the tendency to describe every detail through comparisons. Watch out especially for inept comparisons that don't fit the character or situation. Stephanie Thornton posted some hilarious examples of simile gone awry.

A whole-work "controlling metaphor" or motif is often fine, however. If done well, it can unify and strengthen your work. Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key, for example, uses the motif of doors, keys, fences, houses to examine what makes a place home, and people around us family.

Allusion can be an effective way to say a lot in a small space--your reader will pour in all the context without your needing to explain. But if the book, film, song or historical event you reference is too obscure, it hinders rather than helps your reader. A character whose thoughts are filled with allusions to pop culture will come across as shallow and lacking original ideas of his own.

Name dropping brands is another type of allusion that becomes irksome quickly. Call your fleece jacket a "North Face" once, then stick with generic terms like fleece or jacket in subsequent reference.

Dialect
Take extra care when presenting a character whose regional accent isn't mainstream. The best way to handle dialect is through word order, cadence, grammar, and word choice. But go lightly, especially with regionalisms like "youse guys" or "blimey" or "y'all." And as much as possible, stick to standard spellings. If you've done your research and can imitate the cadence and use the right lingo, your readers will "hear" the dialect without the tortured spellings.

Which of these diction areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Tips for avoiding the dreaded label "purple prose"

Monday, January 21, 2013 Laurel Garver
Today is my final installment of my series on "Reducing Bloat / Revising Overwriting."

Overly elaborate diction is what most think of when they hear the term "overwriting." I'd argue it's just one facet of a tendency to go thick, lush and heavy-handed when drafting. The trick is to identify and correct it during revision.

Advanced vocabulary
Your characters' word choices show us who they are, so it's important to be accurate. Generally word choices should be consistent with a character's age, level of education and socio-economic status. Just as a fifth grader wouldn't discuss post-feminist hegemony, a college professor wouldn't call his enemy "stinkypants."

There are exceptions, however. You might sprinkle in words like "indubitably" and "elementary" to show that your fifth grader fancies himself an amateur sleuth like Sherlock Holmes. A social climber might adopt fancy lingo but misuse it. A grade-skipping child prodigy would wield her vocabulary like a weapon.

As you revise, be willing to question your word choices. Advanced vocabulary can communicate some things you don't intend. It gives the impression that you, the writer, are insecure or a bit out of touch. It can also taint your characters with a popular stereotype: the evil genius whose intelligence is paired with heartless ambition, or the socially awkward hopeless nerd whose head is stuffed with useless knowledge.

Literary devices
As I wrote in this post, sound devices can be an effective tool to make your work sing. But if you're too heavy-handed, it sounds silly or just plain annoying. Generally assonance (repeated internal vowel sounds) is less jarring than alliteration (repeated initial consonant sounds) or rhyming, so you can be a little freer with it.

How heavy is too heavy? I don't have a hard and fast rule. If sound is a big piece of your style, you'll have a hard time identifying overkill. Ask three or four trustworthy readers who get your intent to help you trim all but the best of your devices.

Metaphor and simile can quickly become overdone. Beware of the tendency to describe every detail through comparisons. Watch out especially for inept comparisons that don't fit the character or situation. Stephanie Thornton posted some hilarious examples of simile gone awry.

A whole-work "controlling metaphor" or motif is often fine, however. If done well, it can unify and strengthen your work. Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key, for example, uses the motif of doors, keys, fences, houses to examine what makes a place home, and people around us family.

Allusion can be an effective way to say a lot in a small space--your reader will pour in all the context without your needing to explain. But if the book, film, song or historical event you reference is too obscure, it hinders rather than helps your reader. A character whose thoughts are filled with allusions to pop culture will come across as shallow and lacking original ideas of his own.

Name dropping brands is another type of allusion that becomes irksome quickly. Call your fleece jacket a "North Face" once, then stick with generic terms like fleece or jacket in subsequent reference.

Dialect
Take extra care when presenting a character whose regional accent isn't mainstream. The best way to handle dialect is through word order, cadence, grammar, and word choice. But go lightly, especially with regionalisms like "youse guys" or "blimey" or "y'all." And as much as possible, stick to standard spellings. If you've done your research and can imitate the cadence and use the right lingo, your readers will "hear" the dialect without the tortured spellings.

Which of these diction areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Monday, January 14


In my ongoing series on reducing bloat (aka revising "overwriting"), we've looked at eliminating tangents and sentence-level wordiness. Today, we'll look at "sins of the tongue"--that is, types of overwriting that crop up in dialogue.

Softening phrases

Indirectness can be an effective way of showing a character’s non-confrontational nature or anxiety or indecision. Or it can simply be your anxiety appearing on the page. Take care to limit how many softening phrases you use.

Some common softeners to search for: maybe, might, seem, just, like, kind of, sort of, a bit, a little, tends to, as it were, you know, I think, I guess, I don't know.

Sample 1
He seemed kind of like, you know, maybe a bit of whiner.

Your best fix for this verbosity is to simply trim. Pick the phrase that best fits your voice.
He's kind of a whiner.
He seems whiny.

Or be direct:
He's a whiner.

Sample 2
Jared told Nate, “I think maybe we sort of like each other a little. I don’t know.”

Body language can stand in for some of the softening:
Jared shrugged. “We like each other a little.”

So can narrated action:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate, but there was Lia dancing with the neckless linebacker.

Or try internal thought:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate. At least in bio, where there were no neckless linebackers to hit on Lia.

The idea here is to mix techniques. What makes something overwritten is repetitious abuse of a single technique. Make sense?


Verbal tics

In an effort to make dialogue sound authentic, many beginning writers transcribe real conversations. Unfortunately, this makes for very annoying reading. Your goal should be verisimilitude--"like reality"--that reflects some of a speaker's peculiar turns of phrase without going overboard.

Some common tics to look out for: like, just, totally, literally, you know.

Sample (college student I overheard in elevator):
"Like, omigosh that dude is like, you know, so totally friggin bizarro freak-boy weird."

She has some colorful lingo here, but tends to gush and repeat herself. Some trims do the trick:
"That dude? Total freak boy."
"You see that friggin bizarre dude?"

Remember that "book speech" should be more efficient and compact than real speech. Use verbal tics like hot peppers in a sauce--just enough to add flavor. Too much, and it's inedible.

Evasive maneuvers

Perhaps you have a character who tries to evade truth telling by going on long-winded tangents. In early drafts, I let my MC do just that. The trick for revision has been to represent this in a way that gets the idea across without being tiresome to read. I've found it's definitely a case where telling works better than showing.

Overwritten example from an early draft (brace yourself, it's a doozy):

“Well, it was a total nightmare getting here,” I say. “We got into a holding pattern over Heathrow and I wanted to get out of my seat so bad. They cram you in there like a pack of Crayolas. I wish I could have taken my legs off and stowed them in the overhead bin. The guy in front of me had his head practically in my lap most of the way and there was this Amazon warrior princess sitting across the aisle from me who must work for the WNBA or something. She was huge. Her legs were sticking way out in the aisle and people kept tripping over her giant feet and falling on me. This one kid tripped and dropped a handful of superballs, and they bounced and ricocheted all over the place. If almost everyone hadn’t been asleep, it would have been total pandemonium. After we finally landed and got luggage, I had to go through customs all alone because the rest of my family are citizens. So I end up behind this bunch of drunk college students who danced around and sang ‘Born in the USA’ at the top of their lungs. Some of them got hauled off by security. I hope they got strip-searched, stupid goons. By the time I find my grandparents, I have a raging headache, but there was nowhere to get coffee. My grandfather is Mr. Fit and Spry, so he’s like, ‘let’s pop on the Tube, we’ll get to King’s Cross in no time.’ King’s Cross is the rail station with trains that go up to the northeast and Scotland. It was in Harry Potter. You know, platform 9 ¾? There’s a sign for platform 9 ¾, but they keep a luggage trolley in front of it so no crazy kids run into the wall and crack their heads open. Anyway, the tube ride is like an hour long, and this was New Year’s Day. So in addition to hung-over people who had been partying all night, the train’s packed with suburbanites heading to the city to hit the post-holiday sales. Of course, everyone’s totally annoyed to have to climb over our fat suitcases, but they’d never say anything. The British never do. They just sigh a lot, glare and generally look ticked off.”

“I wondered when you were going to pause for breath."

Dreadful, right? My reader certainly wouldn't have the patience to wade through Dani's random babbling about things with no significance to the plot or this scene.

I repaired this using narrative summary, then transition back to dialogue:

I launch into a long-winded story about my travel woes: the cramped flight, rowdy jerks in line with me at customs, endless rides on the Tube and train, my uncle’s crazy driving. How I wish I'd beamed straight to Ashmede, like they do on Star Trek.

He laughs. “Don’t get your hopes up. No one could survive being atomically deconstructed. It’s a bogus concept altogether.”

The key is to discern what you most want to communicate. In my case, it wasn't the content of Dani's babbling that mattered, it was action of babbling itself that showed her anxiety and duplicity. Remember that not all telling is evil. It has a place in your toolbox.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Three tips for streamlining dialogue

Monday, January 14, 2013 Laurel Garver

In my ongoing series on reducing bloat (aka revising "overwriting"), we've looked at eliminating tangents and sentence-level wordiness. Today, we'll look at "sins of the tongue"--that is, types of overwriting that crop up in dialogue.

Softening phrases

Indirectness can be an effective way of showing a character’s non-confrontational nature or anxiety or indecision. Or it can simply be your anxiety appearing on the page. Take care to limit how many softening phrases you use.

Some common softeners to search for: maybe, might, seem, just, like, kind of, sort of, a bit, a little, tends to, as it were, you know, I think, I guess, I don't know.

Sample 1
He seemed kind of like, you know, maybe a bit of whiner.

Your best fix for this verbosity is to simply trim. Pick the phrase that best fits your voice.
He's kind of a whiner.
He seems whiny.

Or be direct:
He's a whiner.

Sample 2
Jared told Nate, “I think maybe we sort of like each other a little. I don’t know.”

Body language can stand in for some of the softening:
Jared shrugged. “We like each other a little.”

So can narrated action:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate, but there was Lia dancing with the neckless linebacker.

Or try internal thought:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate. At least in bio, where there were no neckless linebackers to hit on Lia.

The idea here is to mix techniques. What makes something overwritten is repetitious abuse of a single technique. Make sense?


Verbal tics

In an effort to make dialogue sound authentic, many beginning writers transcribe real conversations. Unfortunately, this makes for very annoying reading. Your goal should be verisimilitude--"like reality"--that reflects some of a speaker's peculiar turns of phrase without going overboard.

Some common tics to look out for: like, just, totally, literally, you know.

Sample (college student I overheard in elevator):
"Like, omigosh that dude is like, you know, so totally friggin bizarro freak-boy weird."

She has some colorful lingo here, but tends to gush and repeat herself. Some trims do the trick:
"That dude? Total freak boy."
"You see that friggin bizarre dude?"

Remember that "book speech" should be more efficient and compact than real speech. Use verbal tics like hot peppers in a sauce--just enough to add flavor. Too much, and it's inedible.

Evasive maneuvers

Perhaps you have a character who tries to evade truth telling by going on long-winded tangents. In early drafts, I let my MC do just that. The trick for revision has been to represent this in a way that gets the idea across without being tiresome to read. I've found it's definitely a case where telling works better than showing.

Overwritten example from an early draft (brace yourself, it's a doozy):

“Well, it was a total nightmare getting here,” I say. “We got into a holding pattern over Heathrow and I wanted to get out of my seat so bad. They cram you in there like a pack of Crayolas. I wish I could have taken my legs off and stowed them in the overhead bin. The guy in front of me had his head practically in my lap most of the way and there was this Amazon warrior princess sitting across the aisle from me who must work for the WNBA or something. She was huge. Her legs were sticking way out in the aisle and people kept tripping over her giant feet and falling on me. This one kid tripped and dropped a handful of superballs, and they bounced and ricocheted all over the place. If almost everyone hadn’t been asleep, it would have been total pandemonium. After we finally landed and got luggage, I had to go through customs all alone because the rest of my family are citizens. So I end up behind this bunch of drunk college students who danced around and sang ‘Born in the USA’ at the top of their lungs. Some of them got hauled off by security. I hope they got strip-searched, stupid goons. By the time I find my grandparents, I have a raging headache, but there was nowhere to get coffee. My grandfather is Mr. Fit and Spry, so he’s like, ‘let’s pop on the Tube, we’ll get to King’s Cross in no time.’ King’s Cross is the rail station with trains that go up to the northeast and Scotland. It was in Harry Potter. You know, platform 9 ¾? There’s a sign for platform 9 ¾, but they keep a luggage trolley in front of it so no crazy kids run into the wall and crack their heads open. Anyway, the tube ride is like an hour long, and this was New Year’s Day. So in addition to hung-over people who had been partying all night, the train’s packed with suburbanites heading to the city to hit the post-holiday sales. Of course, everyone’s totally annoyed to have to climb over our fat suitcases, but they’d never say anything. The British never do. They just sigh a lot, glare and generally look ticked off.”

“I wondered when you were going to pause for breath."

Dreadful, right? My reader certainly wouldn't have the patience to wade through Dani's random babbling about things with no significance to the plot or this scene.

I repaired this using narrative summary, then transition back to dialogue:

I launch into a long-winded story about my travel woes: the cramped flight, rowdy jerks in line with me at customs, endless rides on the Tube and train, my uncle’s crazy driving. How I wish I'd beamed straight to Ashmede, like they do on Star Trek.

He laughs. “Don’t get your hopes up. No one could survive being atomically deconstructed. It’s a bogus concept altogether.”

The key is to discern what you most want to communicate. In my case, it wasn't the content of Dani's babbling that mattered, it was action of babbling itself that showed her anxiety and duplicity. Remember that not all telling is evil. It has a place in your toolbox.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Wednesday, January 9

In my series on reducing bloat (aka revising an overwritten manuscript), today we'll be tackling tangents, a term you might associate with geometry. My MC Danielle, an gifted artist, struggles terribly with geometry in particular and with numbers generally. When she initially signed up for classes, she was sure shape-related math would be breeze-easy for her arty brain.

See, friends? This is how tangents worm their way into your work. It's exceedingly easy for one thought to trigger another, unrelated one. Suddenly you've followed a rabbit trail into a deep thicket.

I don't yet have a fail-safe for preventing these mental hiccups while drafting. But I have found that longhand free writing warm-ups help me gain focus before diving into a real manuscript in process.

There are a number of places tangents often appear in pieces I've critiqued (and my own drafts): moving from here to there, dialogue transitions, descriptions and internal monologue. Let's look at each.

Movement
Beginning writers often falsely believe they have to account for the MC's every move. Thus they write some intensely boring descriptions of waiting for the bus, or bickering with siblings in the car, or roaming soulless suburban subdivisions.

Unless something plot-twisting happens during movement, cut these yawn-inducing scenes. Instead, use narrative summary to get your character to the location where important action will occur. Remember that not everything your character does merits being dramatized (like potty breaks, for example).

Examples
My thighs are burning by the time pedal to the top of Breach Point.

When we return to Caitlin's place, she's sitting on the porch smoking.

The windows are dark when I reach the rectory. So far, so good.

Dialogue transitions
In The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin spend a day with the Ents' Council and learn from Treebeard that it took from mid-morning till dusk for the Ents to complete their initial hellos. Are your dialogue scenes like this? Wasting a full page each on saying hello and goodbye?

Maybe your dialogue gets tangential in the middle, when one character wants to change the subject and fearing a non sequitur, you waste line after line moving from one topic to the next.

How do you repair this? Mix in other narrative techniques: narrative summary, thought, action.

Examples
To skip lengthy meet and greets:
Once everyone was introduced, Penny said...

We exchanged the usual BS about track and chem before I got the nerve to ask, "You think that guy we saw last night was breaking the law?"

To suddenly shift topics with thought:
Jerome was not going there with this girl. "So, what'd you think of Hayden's plan?"

Was he flirting with me? No freaking way. "I, um, just get headaches from ponytails after a while."

To suddenly shift topics with action:
Izzy checked her watch. "Well, look at the time. You give any thought yet to our project?"

Vic's phone buzzed in his pocket. "Shoot, that's my dad. He's probably hyperventilating that we still haven't found Kip."

Descriptions
Descriptive tangents are probably the easiest to identify. Your character might begin describing the lay of the land then expound a full-blown encyclopedia entry of your setting--its climate, topography, architecture, history, etc., ad nauseum. Or your heroine the fashionista savors every last detail of every outfit worn by every guest at a party.

It's so easy to get carried away in loving your fictional world. Just remember that your reader will savor more of the flavor if you sprinkle shorter descriptions all through the work. For more help with punchy descriptions, see my post "Engaging Descriptions Readers Won't Just Skim."

Internal monologue
Exploring your character's inner world in all its rich vagaries might be fun for you, but as a reader I frankly don't give a rip if those thoughts go absolutely nowhere. Character monologues must have multiple purposes in the narrative or they're just filler. Revealing personality alone is not enough.

Monologues must drive the narrative by revealing inner tensions, moral dilemmas, past wounds, drives, desires, attitudes, prejudices, dislikes or fears that could help or hamper your MC in her quest.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

How to rein in tangents: four tips

Wednesday, January 09, 2013 Laurel Garver
In my series on reducing bloat (aka revising an overwritten manuscript), today we'll be tackling tangents, a term you might associate with geometry. My MC Danielle, an gifted artist, struggles terribly with geometry in particular and with numbers generally. When she initially signed up for classes, she was sure shape-related math would be breeze-easy for her arty brain.

See, friends? This is how tangents worm their way into your work. It's exceedingly easy for one thought to trigger another, unrelated one. Suddenly you've followed a rabbit trail into a deep thicket.

I don't yet have a fail-safe for preventing these mental hiccups while drafting. But I have found that longhand free writing warm-ups help me gain focus before diving into a real manuscript in process.

There are a number of places tangents often appear in pieces I've critiqued (and my own drafts): moving from here to there, dialogue transitions, descriptions and internal monologue. Let's look at each.

Movement
Beginning writers often falsely believe they have to account for the MC's every move. Thus they write some intensely boring descriptions of waiting for the bus, or bickering with siblings in the car, or roaming soulless suburban subdivisions.

Unless something plot-twisting happens during movement, cut these yawn-inducing scenes. Instead, use narrative summary to get your character to the location where important action will occur. Remember that not everything your character does merits being dramatized (like potty breaks, for example).

Examples
My thighs are burning by the time pedal to the top of Breach Point.

When we return to Caitlin's place, she's sitting on the porch smoking.

The windows are dark when I reach the rectory. So far, so good.

Dialogue transitions
In The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin spend a day with the Ents' Council and learn from Treebeard that it took from mid-morning till dusk for the Ents to complete their initial hellos. Are your dialogue scenes like this? Wasting a full page each on saying hello and goodbye?

Maybe your dialogue gets tangential in the middle, when one character wants to change the subject and fearing a non sequitur, you waste line after line moving from one topic to the next.

How do you repair this? Mix in other narrative techniques: narrative summary, thought, action.

Examples
To skip lengthy meet and greets:
Once everyone was introduced, Penny said...

We exchanged the usual BS about track and chem before I got the nerve to ask, "You think that guy we saw last night was breaking the law?"

To suddenly shift topics with thought:
Jerome was not going there with this girl. "So, what'd you think of Hayden's plan?"

Was he flirting with me? No freaking way. "I, um, just get headaches from ponytails after a while."

To suddenly shift topics with action:
Izzy checked her watch. "Well, look at the time. You give any thought yet to our project?"

Vic's phone buzzed in his pocket. "Shoot, that's my dad. He's probably hyperventilating that we still haven't found Kip."

Descriptions
Descriptive tangents are probably the easiest to identify. Your character might begin describing the lay of the land then expound a full-blown encyclopedia entry of your setting--its climate, topography, architecture, history, etc., ad nauseum. Or your heroine the fashionista savors every last detail of every outfit worn by every guest at a party.

It's so easy to get carried away in loving your fictional world. Just remember that your reader will savor more of the flavor if you sprinkle shorter descriptions all through the work. For more help with punchy descriptions, see my post "Engaging Descriptions Readers Won't Just Skim."

Internal monologue
Exploring your character's inner world in all its rich vagaries might be fun for you, but as a reader I frankly don't give a rip if those thoughts go absolutely nowhere. Character monologues must have multiple purposes in the narrative or they're just filler. Revealing personality alone is not enough.

Monologues must drive the narrative by revealing inner tensions, moral dilemmas, past wounds, drives, desires, attitudes, prejudices, dislikes or fears that could help or hamper your MC in her quest.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Monday, January 7


Many of you are revising NaNo projects and have discovered that your eagerness to hit word counts led you to create a whole lot of bloated prose. Some of the problem might be tangents, some of it letting characters babble. I'll address these issues in future posts.

Today, I'd like to address some common, sentence-level causes of wordiness. Many of these things are not grammatically incorrect and some may have a place in your writing. Just keep in mind that wordy constructions usually reduce clarity and feel overwritten. Trimming and revising wordy sentences will improve flow and pacing.

Nominals
Beware of these “nouned verbs,” words created by adding suffixes to verbs, such as completion, deliverance, and agreement. They can sound ponderous and clunky. They’re also often a sign of passive writing, in which the subject is buried, typically within a prepositional phrase.

To repair the problem, identify who’s acting, make him the subject and convert the nominal to its verb form.

Whenever possible, replace nominal constructions like “be appreciative of” with the simple verb, in this case “appreciate.”

Examples
Strict enforcement of the speed limit by the police will cause a reduction in traffic fatalities.
Revised: Officers strictly enforcing the speed limit will reduce traffic fatalities.

Olivia’s friends are supportive of her in every way.
Revised: Olivia’s friends support her in every way.

 Expletives
“Expletives,” meant in the grammatical sense of “explaining,” use “there” or “it” with a form of “to be” and frequently add unnecessary words. Notice that expletives like to pair with nominals.

To repair the problem, move the subject to the fore and let it act with a strong verb. At times, adverbs can combat the problem, too. (Surprise! Adverbs are not always the enemy. Making long, contorted sentences to avoid them does not truly strengthen your work, does it?)

Examples
There were fifty people in attendance at the meeting.
Revised: Fifty people attended the meeting.

There is a light breeze that is shivering among the branches.
Revised: A light breeze shivers among the branches.
It is apparent that the team members can’t agree.
Revised: Apparently, the team can’t agree.

 Dependent clauses
Beware of unnecessary dependent clauses. You can usually eliminate them and they’re easy to find—search for frequent repetition of “who” and “that” followed by forms of “to be.”

Examples
Carrie recognized the dog who was chasing Leah.
Revised: Carrie recognized the dog chasing Leah.

Joe wants a medication that is prescribed by a physician.
Revised: Joe wants a medication prescribed by a physician.
Alternate: Joe wants a prescription medication.

Anyone who is willing to work hard will succeed in this class.
Revised: Anyone willing to work hard will succeed in this class.

Other perpetrators
A few other wordy constructions to watch for:

Using “to be” with “going to” rather than “will”
I am going to think about it.
Revised: I’ll think about it.

Paul is never going to buy that idea.
Revised: Paul will never buy that idea.
Alternate: Paul won’t ever buy that idea.

 Using “would like to” instead of “want” 

Casey would like to wear matching outfits.
Revised: Casey wants to wear matching outfits.

Adding unnecessary descriptions when meaning is clear from context

Gilbert put his shoes on his feet.
Revised: Gilbert put on his shoes.

If you can think of others, please drop a note in the comments.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Reducing bloat: simple strategies

Monday, January 07, 2013 Laurel Garver

Many of you are revising NaNo projects and have discovered that your eagerness to hit word counts led you to create a whole lot of bloated prose. Some of the problem might be tangents, some of it letting characters babble. I'll address these issues in future posts.

Today, I'd like to address some common, sentence-level causes of wordiness. Many of these things are not grammatically incorrect and some may have a place in your writing. Just keep in mind that wordy constructions usually reduce clarity and feel overwritten. Trimming and revising wordy sentences will improve flow and pacing.

Nominals
Beware of these “nouned verbs,” words created by adding suffixes to verbs, such as completion, deliverance, and agreement. They can sound ponderous and clunky. They’re also often a sign of passive writing, in which the subject is buried, typically within a prepositional phrase.

To repair the problem, identify who’s acting, make him the subject and convert the nominal to its verb form.

Whenever possible, replace nominal constructions like “be appreciative of” with the simple verb, in this case “appreciate.”

Examples
Strict enforcement of the speed limit by the police will cause a reduction in traffic fatalities.
Revised: Officers strictly enforcing the speed limit will reduce traffic fatalities.

Olivia’s friends are supportive of her in every way.
Revised: Olivia’s friends support her in every way.

 Expletives
“Expletives,” meant in the grammatical sense of “explaining,” use “there” or “it” with a form of “to be” and frequently add unnecessary words. Notice that expletives like to pair with nominals.

To repair the problem, move the subject to the fore and let it act with a strong verb. At times, adverbs can combat the problem, too. (Surprise! Adverbs are not always the enemy. Making long, contorted sentences to avoid them does not truly strengthen your work, does it?)

Examples
There were fifty people in attendance at the meeting.
Revised: Fifty people attended the meeting.

There is a light breeze that is shivering among the branches.
Revised: A light breeze shivers among the branches.
It is apparent that the team members can’t agree.
Revised: Apparently, the team can’t agree.

 Dependent clauses
Beware of unnecessary dependent clauses. You can usually eliminate them and they’re easy to find—search for frequent repetition of “who” and “that” followed by forms of “to be.”

Examples
Carrie recognized the dog who was chasing Leah.
Revised: Carrie recognized the dog chasing Leah.

Joe wants a medication that is prescribed by a physician.
Revised: Joe wants a medication prescribed by a physician.
Alternate: Joe wants a prescription medication.

Anyone who is willing to work hard will succeed in this class.
Revised: Anyone willing to work hard will succeed in this class.

Other perpetrators
A few other wordy constructions to watch for:

Using “to be” with “going to” rather than “will”
I am going to think about it.
Revised: I’ll think about it.

Paul is never going to buy that idea.
Revised: Paul will never buy that idea.
Alternate: Paul won’t ever buy that idea.

 Using “would like to” instead of “want” 

Casey would like to wear matching outfits.
Revised: Casey wants to wear matching outfits.

Adding unnecessary descriptions when meaning is clear from context

Gilbert put his shoes on his feet.
Revised: Gilbert put on his shoes.

If you can think of others, please drop a note in the comments.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Thursday, June 24

Welcome to part 5 of my series on overwriting. In case you missed the earlier posts in the series, here are the links:

Part 1- Overwriting: What is it?
Part 2- Overwriting: Diction
Part 3- Overwriting: Babbling
Part 4- Overwriting: Tangents

Today we get down and dirty with grammar as we look at common causes of wordiness. Many of these things are not grammatically incorrect and some may have a place in your writing. Just keep in mind that wordy constructions usually reduce clarity and feel overwritten. Trimming and revising wordy sentences will improve flow and pacing.

Nominals
Beware of these “nouned verbs,” words created by adding suffixes to verbs, such as completion, deliverance, and agreement. They can sound ponderous and clunky. They’re also often a sign of passive writing, in which the subject is buried, typically within a prepositional phrase.

To repair the problem, identify who’s acting, make him the subject and convert the nominal to its verb form.

Whenever possible, replace nominal constructions like “be appreciative of” with the simple verb, in this case “appreciate.”

Examples
Strict enforcement of the speed limit by the police will cause a reduction in traffic fatalities.
Revised: Officers strictly enforcing the speed limit will reduce traffic fatalities.

Olivia’s friends are supportive of her in every way.
Revised: Olivia’s friends support her in every way.

Expletives
“Expletives,” meant in the grammatical sense of “explaining,” use “there” or “it” with a form of “to be” and frequently add unnecessary words. Notice that expletives like to pair with nominals.

To repair the problem, move the subject to the fore and let it act with a strong verb. At times, adverbs can combat the problem, too.

Examples
There were fifty people in attendance at the meeting.
Revised: Fifty people attended the meeting.

There is a light breeze that is shivering among the branches.
Revised: A light breeze shivers among the branches.

It is apparent that the team members can’t agree.
Revised: Apparently, the team can’t agree.

Dependent clauses
Beware of unnecessary dependent clauses. You can usually eliminate them and they’re easy to find—search for frequent repetition of “who” and “that” followed by forms of “to be.”

Examples
Carrie recognized the dog who was chasing Leah.
Revised: Carrie recognized the dog chasing Leah.

Joe wants a medication that is prescribed by a physician.
Revised: Joe wants a medication prescribed by a physician.
Alternate: Joe wants a prescription medication.

Anyone who is willing to work hard will succeed in this class.
Revised: Anyone willing to work hard will succeed in this class.

Other perpetrators
A few other wordy constructions to watch for:

Using “to be” with “going to” rather than “will”

I am going to think about it.
Revised: I’ll think about it.

Paul is never going to buy that idea.
Revised: Paul will never buy that idea.
Alternate: Paul won’t ever buy that idea.

Using “would like to” instead of “want”

Casey would like to wear matching outfits.
Revised: Casey wants to wear matching outfits.

Adding unnecessary descriptions when meaning is clear from context

Gilbert put his shoes on his feet.
Revised: Gilbert put on his shoes.

If you can think of others, please drop a note in the comments.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Overwriting (part 5): Wordy constructions

Thursday, June 24, 2010 Laurel Garver
Welcome to part 5 of my series on overwriting. In case you missed the earlier posts in the series, here are the links:

Part 1- Overwriting: What is it?
Part 2- Overwriting: Diction
Part 3- Overwriting: Babbling
Part 4- Overwriting: Tangents

Today we get down and dirty with grammar as we look at common causes of wordiness. Many of these things are not grammatically incorrect and some may have a place in your writing. Just keep in mind that wordy constructions usually reduce clarity and feel overwritten. Trimming and revising wordy sentences will improve flow and pacing.

Nominals
Beware of these “nouned verbs,” words created by adding suffixes to verbs, such as completion, deliverance, and agreement. They can sound ponderous and clunky. They’re also often a sign of passive writing, in which the subject is buried, typically within a prepositional phrase.

To repair the problem, identify who’s acting, make him the subject and convert the nominal to its verb form.

Whenever possible, replace nominal constructions like “be appreciative of” with the simple verb, in this case “appreciate.”

Examples
Strict enforcement of the speed limit by the police will cause a reduction in traffic fatalities.
Revised: Officers strictly enforcing the speed limit will reduce traffic fatalities.

Olivia’s friends are supportive of her in every way.
Revised: Olivia’s friends support her in every way.

Expletives
“Expletives,” meant in the grammatical sense of “explaining,” use “there” or “it” with a form of “to be” and frequently add unnecessary words. Notice that expletives like to pair with nominals.

To repair the problem, move the subject to the fore and let it act with a strong verb. At times, adverbs can combat the problem, too.

Examples
There were fifty people in attendance at the meeting.
Revised: Fifty people attended the meeting.

There is a light breeze that is shivering among the branches.
Revised: A light breeze shivers among the branches.

It is apparent that the team members can’t agree.
Revised: Apparently, the team can’t agree.

Dependent clauses
Beware of unnecessary dependent clauses. You can usually eliminate them and they’re easy to find—search for frequent repetition of “who” and “that” followed by forms of “to be.”

Examples
Carrie recognized the dog who was chasing Leah.
Revised: Carrie recognized the dog chasing Leah.

Joe wants a medication that is prescribed by a physician.
Revised: Joe wants a medication prescribed by a physician.
Alternate: Joe wants a prescription medication.

Anyone who is willing to work hard will succeed in this class.
Revised: Anyone willing to work hard will succeed in this class.

Other perpetrators
A few other wordy constructions to watch for:

Using “to be” with “going to” rather than “will”

I am going to think about it.
Revised: I’ll think about it.

Paul is never going to buy that idea.
Revised: Paul will never buy that idea.
Alternate: Paul won’t ever buy that idea.

Using “would like to” instead of “want”

Casey would like to wear matching outfits.
Revised: Casey wants to wear matching outfits.

Adding unnecessary descriptions when meaning is clear from context

Gilbert put his shoes on his feet.
Revised: Gilbert put on his shoes.

If you can think of others, please drop a note in the comments.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Friday, June 18

Dear Editor-on-Call,

I was just asked to beta read a piece from a very good writer friend and lo and behold, she is an overwriter. I am, too, to some extent, but this is excessive. Of course, I want to be gentle when I send this back, but if I was completely honest, I would be bleeding all over the page. Personally, I relish crits that I get back covered in red, because I see it as an awesome learning experience, but others are quite a bit more sensitive than I am. I'm worried that she is one of the sensitive ones. Egads, I don't know what to do here. Do you have any advice?

Sincerely,
Wannabe Gracious

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Gracious,

I've faced this issue before, too. And I'm a recovering overwriter myself. I'd suggest refraining from line editing the whole piece at this stage. General comments and especially questions will be more helpful to your friend, and less likely to wound. Something along the lines of "you have some very vivid descriptions here, and some that I think would feel stronger if you pared them back," then line edit a sentence to show what you mean. In areas where she describes the same thing six ways, try a margin question: which of these best captures your idea here? You can also recommend that she take a look at Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Manuscript Makeover, which will provide great guidance for the revision process.

Especially encourage her to trust the reader more, and to strive for clarity and simplicity. Be sure to sandwich the idea of "you need to trim and simplify" with encouragement about what she does right: her characters are likeable, her emotions real, her humor funny, her plot attention-grabbing and the like. Overwriting is so often a sign of lack of confidence. Build her up in the right way, and she'll find the courage to trim.

Cheers,
Laurel

Any other sage words for this advice-seeker? How do you typically approach critiquing an overwriter?

Any other pressing questions you'd like me to address in a future post? Send them to me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'm out of town for the weekend and may not respond to comments till Sunday or Monday.

Editor-on-call: tips for critiquing an overwriter

Friday, June 18, 2010 Laurel Garver
Dear Editor-on-Call,

I was just asked to beta read a piece from a very good writer friend and lo and behold, she is an overwriter. I am, too, to some extent, but this is excessive. Of course, I want to be gentle when I send this back, but if I was completely honest, I would be bleeding all over the page. Personally, I relish crits that I get back covered in red, because I see it as an awesome learning experience, but others are quite a bit more sensitive than I am. I'm worried that she is one of the sensitive ones. Egads, I don't know what to do here. Do you have any advice?

Sincerely,
Wannabe Gracious

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Gracious,

I've faced this issue before, too. And I'm a recovering overwriter myself. I'd suggest refraining from line editing the whole piece at this stage. General comments and especially questions will be more helpful to your friend, and less likely to wound. Something along the lines of "you have some very vivid descriptions here, and some that I think would feel stronger if you pared them back," then line edit a sentence to show what you mean. In areas where she describes the same thing six ways, try a margin question: which of these best captures your idea here? You can also recommend that she take a look at Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Manuscript Makeover, which will provide great guidance for the revision process.

Especially encourage her to trust the reader more, and to strive for clarity and simplicity. Be sure to sandwich the idea of "you need to trim and simplify" with encouragement about what she does right: her characters are likeable, her emotions real, her humor funny, her plot attention-grabbing and the like. Overwriting is so often a sign of lack of confidence. Build her up in the right way, and she'll find the courage to trim.

Cheers,
Laurel

Any other sage words for this advice-seeker? How do you typically approach critiquing an overwriter?

Any other pressing questions you'd like me to address in a future post? Send them to me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'm out of town for the weekend and may not respond to comments till Sunday or Monday.

Thursday, June 10

If you're just now joining us, I've been doing a series on the problem of "overwriting" and how to repair work suffering from this malady.

Here are the links to my earlier posts in the series:

Part 1- Overwriting: What is is?
Part 2- Overwriting: Diction
Part 3- Overwriting: Babbling

Today we come to tangents, a term you might associate with geometry. My MC, an arty New York girl, struggles terribly with geometry in particular and with numbers generally. When she initially signed up for classes, she was sure shape-related math would be breeze-easy for her arty brain.

See, friends? This is how tangents worm their way into your work! It's exceedingly easy for one thought to trigger another, unrelated one. Suddenly you've dropped down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

I don't yet have a fail-safe for preventing these mental hiccups while drafting. But I have found that longhand free writing warm-ups help me gain focus before diving into a real manuscript in process.

There are a number of places tangents often appear in my work: moving from here to there, dialogue transitions, descriptions and internal monologue. Let's look at each.

Movement
Beginning writers often falsely believe they have to account for the MC's every move. Thus they write some intensely boring descriptions of waiting for the bus, or bickering with siblings in the car, or roaming soulless suburban subdivisions.

Unless something plot-twisting happens during movement, cut these yawn-inducing scenes. Instead, use narrative summary to get your character to the location where important action will occur. Remember that not everything your character does merits being dramatized (like potty breaks, for example).

Examples
My thighs are burning by the time pedal to the top of Breach Point.

When we return to Caitlin's place, she's sitting on the porch smoking.

The windows are dark when I reach the rectory. So far, so good.

Dialogue transitions
In The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin spend a day with the Ents' Council and learn from Treebeard that it took from mid-morning till dusk for the Ents to complete their initial hellos. Are your dialogue scenes like this? Wasting a full page each on saying hello and goodbye?

Maybe your dialogue gets tangential in the middle, when one character wants to change the subject and fearing a non sequitur, you waste line after line moving from one topic to the next.

How do you repair this? Mix in other narrative techniques: narrative summary, thought, action.

Examples
To skip lengthy meet and greets:
Once everyone was introduced, Penny said...

We exchanged the usual BS about track and chem before I got the nerve to ask, "You think that guy we saw last night was breaking the law?"

To suddenly shift topics with thought:
Jerome was not going there with this girl. "So, what'd you think of Hayden's plan?"

Was he flirting with me? No freaking way. "I, um, just get headaches from ponytails after a while."

To suddenly shift topics with action:
Izzy checked her watch. "Well, look at the time. You give any thought yet to our project?"

Vic's phone buzzed in his pocket. "Shoot, that's my dad. He's probably hyperventilating that we still haven't found Kip."

Descriptions
Descriptive tangents are probably the easiest to identify. Your character might begin describing the lay of the land then expound a full-blown encyclopedia entry of your setting--its climate, topography, architecture, history, etc., ad nauseum. Or your heroine the fashionista savors every last detail of every outfit worn by every guest at a party.

It's so easy to get carried away in loving your fictional world. Just remember that your reader will savor more of the flavor if you sprinkle shorter descriptions all through the work. For more help with punchy descriptions, see my post "Engaging Descriptions Readers Won't Just Skim."

Internal monologue
Exploring your character's inner world in all its rich vagaries might be fun for you, but as a reader I frankly don't give a rip if those thoughts go absolutely nowhere. Character monologues must have multiple purposes in the narrative or they're just filler. Revealing personality alone is not enough.

Monologues must drive the narrative by revealing inner tensions, moral dilemmas, past wounds, drives, desires, attitudes, prejudices, dislikes or fears that could help or hamper your MC in her quest.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Overwriting (part 4): Tangents

Thursday, June 10, 2010 Laurel Garver
If you're just now joining us, I've been doing a series on the problem of "overwriting" and how to repair work suffering from this malady.

Here are the links to my earlier posts in the series:

Part 1- Overwriting: What is is?
Part 2- Overwriting: Diction
Part 3- Overwriting: Babbling

Today we come to tangents, a term you might associate with geometry. My MC, an arty New York girl, struggles terribly with geometry in particular and with numbers generally. When she initially signed up for classes, she was sure shape-related math would be breeze-easy for her arty brain.

See, friends? This is how tangents worm their way into your work! It's exceedingly easy for one thought to trigger another, unrelated one. Suddenly you've dropped down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

I don't yet have a fail-safe for preventing these mental hiccups while drafting. But I have found that longhand free writing warm-ups help me gain focus before diving into a real manuscript in process.

There are a number of places tangents often appear in my work: moving from here to there, dialogue transitions, descriptions and internal monologue. Let's look at each.

Movement
Beginning writers often falsely believe they have to account for the MC's every move. Thus they write some intensely boring descriptions of waiting for the bus, or bickering with siblings in the car, or roaming soulless suburban subdivisions.

Unless something plot-twisting happens during movement, cut these yawn-inducing scenes. Instead, use narrative summary to get your character to the location where important action will occur. Remember that not everything your character does merits being dramatized (like potty breaks, for example).

Examples
My thighs are burning by the time pedal to the top of Breach Point.

When we return to Caitlin's place, she's sitting on the porch smoking.

The windows are dark when I reach the rectory. So far, so good.

Dialogue transitions
In The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin spend a day with the Ents' Council and learn from Treebeard that it took from mid-morning till dusk for the Ents to complete their initial hellos. Are your dialogue scenes like this? Wasting a full page each on saying hello and goodbye?

Maybe your dialogue gets tangential in the middle, when one character wants to change the subject and fearing a non sequitur, you waste line after line moving from one topic to the next.

How do you repair this? Mix in other narrative techniques: narrative summary, thought, action.

Examples
To skip lengthy meet and greets:
Once everyone was introduced, Penny said...

We exchanged the usual BS about track and chem before I got the nerve to ask, "You think that guy we saw last night was breaking the law?"

To suddenly shift topics with thought:
Jerome was not going there with this girl. "So, what'd you think of Hayden's plan?"

Was he flirting with me? No freaking way. "I, um, just get headaches from ponytails after a while."

To suddenly shift topics with action:
Izzy checked her watch. "Well, look at the time. You give any thought yet to our project?"

Vic's phone buzzed in his pocket. "Shoot, that's my dad. He's probably hyperventilating that we still haven't found Kip."

Descriptions
Descriptive tangents are probably the easiest to identify. Your character might begin describing the lay of the land then expound a full-blown encyclopedia entry of your setting--its climate, topography, architecture, history, etc., ad nauseum. Or your heroine the fashionista savors every last detail of every outfit worn by every guest at a party.

It's so easy to get carried away in loving your fictional world. Just remember that your reader will savor more of the flavor if you sprinkle shorter descriptions all through the work. For more help with punchy descriptions, see my post "Engaging Descriptions Readers Won't Just Skim."

Internal monologue
Exploring your character's inner world in all its rich vagaries might be fun for you, but as a reader I frankly don't give a rip if those thoughts go absolutely nowhere. Character monologues must have multiple purposes in the narrative or they're just filler. Revealing personality alone is not enough.

Monologues must drive the narrative by revealing inner tensions, moral dilemmas, past wounds, drives, desires, attitudes, prejudices, dislikes or fears that could help or hamper your MC in her quest.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Tuesday, June 8

Overwriting, according to Dictionary.com, is "to write in too elaborate, burdensome, diffuse, or prolix a style." This definition itself might qualify as overwritten, but it has provided some helpful hooks on which to hang my thoughts, as I explained in part 1 of the series.

In part 2, we explored diction issues that are a component of overwriting, particularly the abuse of advanced vocabulary, literary devices (sound devices, metaphor and simile, allusion) and dialect.

Today, we'll look at "sins of the tongue"--that is, types of overwriting that crop up in dialogue.

Softening phrases
Indirectness can be an effective way of showing a character’s non-confrontational nature or anxiety or indecision. Or it can simply be your anxiety appearing on the page. Take care to limit how many softening phrases you use.

Some common softeners to search for: maybe, might, seem, just, like, kind of, sort of, a bit, a little, tends to, as it were, you know, I think, I guess, I don't know.

Sample 1
He seemed kind of like, you know, maybe a bit of whiner.

Your best fix for this verbosity is to simply trim. Pick the phrase that best fits your voice.
He's kind of a whiner.
He seems whiny.

Or be direct:
He's a whiner.

Sample 2
Jared told Nate, “I think maybe we sort of like each other a little. I don’t know.”

Body language can stand in for some of the softening:
Jared shrugged. “We like each other a little.”

So can narrated action:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate, but there was Lia dancing with the neckless linebacker.

Or try internal thought:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate. At least in bio, where there were no neckless linebackers to hit on Lia.

The idea here is to mix techniques. What makes something overwritten is repetitious abuse of a single technique. Make sense?

Verbal tics
In an effort to make dialogue sound authentic, many beginning writers transcribe real conversations. Unfortunately, this makes for very annoying reading. Your goal should be verisimilitude--"like reality"--that reflects some of a speaker's peculiar turns of phrase without going overboard.

Some common tics to look out for: like, just, totally, literally, you know.

Sample (college student I overheard in elevator):
"Like, omigosh that dude is like, you know, so totally friggin bizarro freak-boy weird."

She has some colorful lingo here, but tends to gush and repeat herself. Some trims do the trick:
"That dude? Total freak boy."
"You see that friggin bizarre dude?"

Remember that "book speech" should be more efficient and compact than real speech. Use verbal tics like hot peppers in a sauce--just enough to add flavor. Too much, and it's inedible.

Evasive maneuvers
Perhaps you have a character who tries to evade truth telling by going on long-winded tangents. My MC does. The trick has been to represent this in a way that gets the idea across without being tiresome to read. I've found it's definitely a case where telling works better than showing.

Overwritten example (brace yourself, it's a doozy):

“Well, it was a total nightmare getting here,” I say. “We got into a holding pattern over Heathrow and I wanted to get out of my seat so bad. They cram you in there like a pack of Crayolas. I wish I could have taken my legs off and stowed them in the overhead bin. The guy in front of me had his head practically in my lap most of the way and there was this Amazon warrior princess sitting across the aisle from me who must work for the WNBA or something. She was huge. Her legs were sticking way out in the aisle and people kept tripping over her giant feet and falling on me. This one kid tripped and dropped a handful of superballs, and they bounced and ricocheted all over the place. If almost everyone hadn’t been asleep, it would have been total pandemonium. After we finally landed and got luggage, I had to go through customs all alone because the rest of my family are citizens. So I end up behind this bunch of drunk college students who danced around and sang ‘Born in the USA’ at the top of their lungs. Some of them got hauled off by security. I hope they got strip-searched, stupid goons. By the time I find my grandparents, I have a raging headache, but there was nowhere to get coffee. My grandfather is Mr. Fit and Spry, so he’s like, ‘let’s pop on the Tube, we’ll get to King’s Cross in no time.’ King’s Cross is the rail station with trains that go up to the northeast and Scotland. It was in Harry Potter. You know, platform 9 ¾? There’s a sign for platform 9 ¾, but they keep a luggage trolley in front of it so no crazy kids run into the wall and crack their heads open. Anyway, the tube ride is like an hour long, and this was New Year’s Day. So in addition to hung-over people who had been partying all night, the train’s packed with suburbanites heading to the city to hit the post-holiday sales. Of course, everyone’s totally annoyed to have to climb over our fat suitcases, but they’d never say anything. The British never do. They just sigh a lot, glare and generally look ticked off.”

“I wondered when you were going to pause for breath."

Dreadful, right? My reader certainly wouldn't have the patience to wade through Dani's random babbling about things with no significance to the plot or this scene.

I repaired this using narrative summary, then transition back to dialogue:

I launch into a long-winded story about my travel woes: the cramped flight, rowdy jerks in customs, endless rides on the Tube and train, my uncle’s crazy driving. How I wish I could've beamed straight to Ashmede like on Star Trek.

He laughs. “Don’t get your hopes up. No one could survive being atomically deconstructed. It’s a bogus concept altogether.”

The key is to discern what you most want to communicate. In my case, it wasn't the content of Dani's babbling that mattered, it was action of babbling itself that showed her anxiety and duplicity. Remember that not all telling is evil. It has a place in your toolbox.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Overwriting (part 3): Babbling

Tuesday, June 08, 2010 Laurel Garver
Overwriting, according to Dictionary.com, is "to write in too elaborate, burdensome, diffuse, or prolix a style." This definition itself might qualify as overwritten, but it has provided some helpful hooks on which to hang my thoughts, as I explained in part 1 of the series.

In part 2, we explored diction issues that are a component of overwriting, particularly the abuse of advanced vocabulary, literary devices (sound devices, metaphor and simile, allusion) and dialect.

Today, we'll look at "sins of the tongue"--that is, types of overwriting that crop up in dialogue.

Softening phrases
Indirectness can be an effective way of showing a character’s non-confrontational nature or anxiety or indecision. Or it can simply be your anxiety appearing on the page. Take care to limit how many softening phrases you use.

Some common softeners to search for: maybe, might, seem, just, like, kind of, sort of, a bit, a little, tends to, as it were, you know, I think, I guess, I don't know.

Sample 1
He seemed kind of like, you know, maybe a bit of whiner.

Your best fix for this verbosity is to simply trim. Pick the phrase that best fits your voice.
He's kind of a whiner.
He seems whiny.

Or be direct:
He's a whiner.

Sample 2
Jared told Nate, “I think maybe we sort of like each other a little. I don’t know.”

Body language can stand in for some of the softening:
Jared shrugged. “We like each other a little.”

So can narrated action:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate, but there was Lia dancing with the neckless linebacker.

Or try internal thought:
“We like each other,” Jared told Nate. At least in bio, where there were no neckless linebackers to hit on Lia.

The idea here is to mix techniques. What makes something overwritten is repetitious abuse of a single technique. Make sense?

Verbal tics
In an effort to make dialogue sound authentic, many beginning writers transcribe real conversations. Unfortunately, this makes for very annoying reading. Your goal should be verisimilitude--"like reality"--that reflects some of a speaker's peculiar turns of phrase without going overboard.

Some common tics to look out for: like, just, totally, literally, you know.

Sample (college student I overheard in elevator):
"Like, omigosh that dude is like, you know, so totally friggin bizarro freak-boy weird."

She has some colorful lingo here, but tends to gush and repeat herself. Some trims do the trick:
"That dude? Total freak boy."
"You see that friggin bizarre dude?"

Remember that "book speech" should be more efficient and compact than real speech. Use verbal tics like hot peppers in a sauce--just enough to add flavor. Too much, and it's inedible.

Evasive maneuvers
Perhaps you have a character who tries to evade truth telling by going on long-winded tangents. My MC does. The trick has been to represent this in a way that gets the idea across without being tiresome to read. I've found it's definitely a case where telling works better than showing.

Overwritten example (brace yourself, it's a doozy):

“Well, it was a total nightmare getting here,” I say. “We got into a holding pattern over Heathrow and I wanted to get out of my seat so bad. They cram you in there like a pack of Crayolas. I wish I could have taken my legs off and stowed them in the overhead bin. The guy in front of me had his head practically in my lap most of the way and there was this Amazon warrior princess sitting across the aisle from me who must work for the WNBA or something. She was huge. Her legs were sticking way out in the aisle and people kept tripping over her giant feet and falling on me. This one kid tripped and dropped a handful of superballs, and they bounced and ricocheted all over the place. If almost everyone hadn’t been asleep, it would have been total pandemonium. After we finally landed and got luggage, I had to go through customs all alone because the rest of my family are citizens. So I end up behind this bunch of drunk college students who danced around and sang ‘Born in the USA’ at the top of their lungs. Some of them got hauled off by security. I hope they got strip-searched, stupid goons. By the time I find my grandparents, I have a raging headache, but there was nowhere to get coffee. My grandfather is Mr. Fit and Spry, so he’s like, ‘let’s pop on the Tube, we’ll get to King’s Cross in no time.’ King’s Cross is the rail station with trains that go up to the northeast and Scotland. It was in Harry Potter. You know, platform 9 ¾? There’s a sign for platform 9 ¾, but they keep a luggage trolley in front of it so no crazy kids run into the wall and crack their heads open. Anyway, the tube ride is like an hour long, and this was New Year’s Day. So in addition to hung-over people who had been partying all night, the train’s packed with suburbanites heading to the city to hit the post-holiday sales. Of course, everyone’s totally annoyed to have to climb over our fat suitcases, but they’d never say anything. The British never do. They just sigh a lot, glare and generally look ticked off.”

“I wondered when you were going to pause for breath."

Dreadful, right? My reader certainly wouldn't have the patience to wade through Dani's random babbling about things with no significance to the plot or this scene.

I repaired this using narrative summary, then transition back to dialogue:

I launch into a long-winded story about my travel woes: the cramped flight, rowdy jerks in customs, endless rides on the Tube and train, my uncle’s crazy driving. How I wish I could've beamed straight to Ashmede like on Star Trek.

He laughs. “Don’t get your hopes up. No one could survive being atomically deconstructed. It’s a bogus concept altogether.”

The key is to discern what you most want to communicate. In my case, it wasn't the content of Dani's babbling that mattered, it was action of babbling itself that showed her anxiety and duplicity. Remember that not all telling is evil. It has a place in your toolbox.

Which of these areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Monday, June 7

Today I celebrate. My completed novel revisions are now in the hands of my able critique partners! Once they give the manuscript a final dusting-down, it's query time.

Thanks, everyone for your well wishes for my daughter. Ironically it was hobbit-girl's fevered day on the couch Memorial Day that enabled me to be hugely productive and break through my last stuck places. She had a moderate cold after that and recovered by Thursday.

It's been instructive and encouraging to look back at my process this rewrite. In the past eight months I've become an increasingly faster writer. Last fall I was revising three chapters every two months; in the past five weeks, I rewrote eight chapters. Besides becoming speedier, I've also learned a lot about writing leaner. My cleaned-up rough draft for this book was 102K words. This revision (my fourth), I'm down to 66K, right where I want to be for contemporary YA.

One of the key differences I see is my confidence. My tendency to overwrite was strongest when I was starting out and feeling unsure of myself. One strong description didn't feel like enough. I worried that every movement from here to there had to be accounted for. I rarely started scenes in medias res. I created unnecessary delays for the sake of "tension" that felt inorganic.
It took far more than simple trimming to repair the problems, too. What I've learned along the way I hope to share with you. So stay tuned for more on overwriting tomorrow (and several posts after that as well).

How have you been, friends? Where are you in process with your projects? Anything you're celebrating today?

Yee ha!

Monday, June 07, 2010 Laurel Garver
Today I celebrate. My completed novel revisions are now in the hands of my able critique partners! Once they give the manuscript a final dusting-down, it's query time.

Thanks, everyone for your well wishes for my daughter. Ironically it was hobbit-girl's fevered day on the couch Memorial Day that enabled me to be hugely productive and break through my last stuck places. She had a moderate cold after that and recovered by Thursday.

It's been instructive and encouraging to look back at my process this rewrite. In the past eight months I've become an increasingly faster writer. Last fall I was revising three chapters every two months; in the past five weeks, I rewrote eight chapters. Besides becoming speedier, I've also learned a lot about writing leaner. My cleaned-up rough draft for this book was 102K words. This revision (my fourth), I'm down to 66K, right where I want to be for contemporary YA.

One of the key differences I see is my confidence. My tendency to overwrite was strongest when I was starting out and feeling unsure of myself. One strong description didn't feel like enough. I worried that every movement from here to there had to be accounted for. I rarely started scenes in medias res. I created unnecessary delays for the sake of "tension" that felt inorganic.
It took far more than simple trimming to repair the problems, too. What I've learned along the way I hope to share with you. So stay tuned for more on overwriting tomorrow (and several posts after that as well).

How have you been, friends? Where are you in process with your projects? Anything you're celebrating today?

Tuesday, June 1

Despite my best intentions, I don't think I'll be able to put in much blogging time this week. Being home with a sick kid for a few days has forced me to reshuffle how I spend my time.

I know many of you are eager for more installments of my overwriting series. So here's how you can help me get back on track next week: Send me some sample sentences to discuss and repair.

I need examples of sentences and/or paragraphs that demonstrate writing that's
~dense
~difficult to understand
~tangent-ridden
~full of verbal tics ("just," "you know," "like totally")
~full of softening phrases ("kind of," "a little," "along the lines of," etc.)
~wordy
~rambling
~explanation-heavy
~repetitive

Send your overwritten gems to laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com by Thursday. I'll use the most telling examples to shed light on common problems. Be sure to let me know if you wish your examples to remain anonymous. I'll give credit only if you want it.

Have a great week, everyone!

To be continued...

Tuesday, June 01, 2010 Laurel Garver
Despite my best intentions, I don't think I'll be able to put in much blogging time this week. Being home with a sick kid for a few days has forced me to reshuffle how I spend my time.

I know many of you are eager for more installments of my overwriting series. So here's how you can help me get back on track next week: Send me some sample sentences to discuss and repair.

I need examples of sentences and/or paragraphs that demonstrate writing that's
~dense
~difficult to understand
~tangent-ridden
~full of verbal tics ("just," "you know," "like totally")
~full of softening phrases ("kind of," "a little," "along the lines of," etc.)
~wordy
~rambling
~explanation-heavy
~repetitive

Send your overwritten gems to laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com by Thursday. I'll use the most telling examples to shed light on common problems. Be sure to let me know if you wish your examples to remain anonymous. I'll give credit only if you want it.

Have a great week, everyone!

Wednesday, May 26

Overly elaborate diction is what most think of when they hear the term "overwriting." I'd argue it's just one facet of a tendency to go thick, lush and heavy-handed when drafting. The trick is to identify and correct it during revision.

Advanced vocabulary
Your characters' word choices show us who they are, so it's important to be accurate. Generally word choices should be consistent with a character's age, level of education and socio-economic status. Just as a fifth grader wouldn't discuss post-feminist hegemony, a college professor wouldn't call his enemy "stinkypants."

There are exceptions, however. You might sprinkle in words like "indubitably" and "elementary" to show that your fifth grader fancies himself an amateur sleuth like Sherlock Holmes. A social climber might adopt fancy lingo but misuse it. A grade-skipping child prodigy would wield her vocabulary like a weapon.

As you revise, be willing to question your word choices. Advanced vocabulary can communicate some things you don't intend. It gives the impression that you, the writer, are insecure or a bit out of touch. It can also taint your characters with a popular stereotype: the evil genius whose intelligence is paired with heartless ambition, or the socially awkward hopeless nerd whose head is stuffed with useless knowledge.

Literary devices
As I wrote in this post, sound devices can be an effective tool to make your work sing. But if you're too heavy-handed, it sounds silly or just plain annoying. Generally assonance (repeated internal vowel sounds) is less jarring than alliteration (repeated initial consonant sounds) or rhyming, so you can be a little freer with it.

How heavy is too heavy? I don't have a hard and fast rule. If sound is a big piece of your style, you'll have a hard time identifying overkill. Ask four or five trustworthy readers who get your intent to help you trim all but the best of your devices.

Metaphor and simile can quickly become overdone. Beware of the tendency to describe every detail through comparisons. Watch out especially for inept comparisons that don't fit the character or situation. Stephanie at Hatsheput posted some hilarious examples of simile gone awry.

A whole-work "controlling metaphor" or motif is often fine, however. If done well, it can unify and strengthen your work. Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key, for example, uses the motif of doors, keys, fences, houses to examine what makes a place home, and people around us family.

Allusion can be an effective way to say a lot in a small space--your reader will pour in all the context without your needing to explain. But if the book, film, song or historical event you reference is too obscure, it hinders rather than helps your reader. A character whose thoughts are filled with allusions to pop culture will come across as shallow and lacking original ideas of his own.

Name dropping brands is another type of allusion that becomes irksome quickly. Call your fleece jacket a "North Face" once, then stick with generic terms like fleece or jacket in subsequent reference.

Dialect
Take extra care when presenting a character whose regional accent isn't mainstream. The best way to handle dialect is through word order, cadence, grammar and word choice. But go lightly, especially with regionalisms like "youse guys" or "blimey" or "y'all." And as much as possible, stick to standard spellings. If you've done your research and can imitate the cadence and use the right lingo, your readers will "hear" the dialect without the tortured spellings.

Which of these diction areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Overwriting (part 2): Diction

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 Laurel Garver
Overly elaborate diction is what most think of when they hear the term "overwriting." I'd argue it's just one facet of a tendency to go thick, lush and heavy-handed when drafting. The trick is to identify and correct it during revision.

Advanced vocabulary
Your characters' word choices show us who they are, so it's important to be accurate. Generally word choices should be consistent with a character's age, level of education and socio-economic status. Just as a fifth grader wouldn't discuss post-feminist hegemony, a college professor wouldn't call his enemy "stinkypants."

There are exceptions, however. You might sprinkle in words like "indubitably" and "elementary" to show that your fifth grader fancies himself an amateur sleuth like Sherlock Holmes. A social climber might adopt fancy lingo but misuse it. A grade-skipping child prodigy would wield her vocabulary like a weapon.

As you revise, be willing to question your word choices. Advanced vocabulary can communicate some things you don't intend. It gives the impression that you, the writer, are insecure or a bit out of touch. It can also taint your characters with a popular stereotype: the evil genius whose intelligence is paired with heartless ambition, or the socially awkward hopeless nerd whose head is stuffed with useless knowledge.

Literary devices
As I wrote in this post, sound devices can be an effective tool to make your work sing. But if you're too heavy-handed, it sounds silly or just plain annoying. Generally assonance (repeated internal vowel sounds) is less jarring than alliteration (repeated initial consonant sounds) or rhyming, so you can be a little freer with it.

How heavy is too heavy? I don't have a hard and fast rule. If sound is a big piece of your style, you'll have a hard time identifying overkill. Ask four or five trustworthy readers who get your intent to help you trim all but the best of your devices.

Metaphor and simile can quickly become overdone. Beware of the tendency to describe every detail through comparisons. Watch out especially for inept comparisons that don't fit the character or situation. Stephanie at Hatsheput posted some hilarious examples of simile gone awry.

A whole-work "controlling metaphor" or motif is often fine, however. If done well, it can unify and strengthen your work. Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key, for example, uses the motif of doors, keys, fences, houses to examine what makes a place home, and people around us family.

Allusion can be an effective way to say a lot in a small space--your reader will pour in all the context without your needing to explain. But if the book, film, song or historical event you reference is too obscure, it hinders rather than helps your reader. A character whose thoughts are filled with allusions to pop culture will come across as shallow and lacking original ideas of his own.

Name dropping brands is another type of allusion that becomes irksome quickly. Call your fleece jacket a "North Face" once, then stick with generic terms like fleece or jacket in subsequent reference.

Dialect
Take extra care when presenting a character whose regional accent isn't mainstream. The best way to handle dialect is through word order, cadence, grammar and word choice. But go lightly, especially with regionalisms like "youse guys" or "blimey" or "y'all." And as much as possible, stick to standard spellings. If you've done your research and can imitate the cadence and use the right lingo, your readers will "hear" the dialect without the tortured spellings.

Which of these diction areas trips you up? Any other helpful hints to add?

Monday, May 24

If you've participated in critique groups, writing workshops or online forums, you may have seen or heard someone's piece criticized for being "overwritten." But what does that mean exactly?

Dictionary.com gives us a few useful definitions for "overwrite":

1.to write in too elaborate, burdensome, diffuse, or prolix a style: He overwrites his essays to the point of absurdity.

2.to write in excess of the requirements, esp. so as to defeat the original intention: That young playwright tends to overwrite her big scenes.

From these definitions, let's break down the key terms.

Overwritten fiction is...

too elaborate--its tone and voice don't fit the characters and situation.

burdensome--it is dense and difficult to understand.

diffuse--it goes on tangents, lacks focus.

prolix--it rambles and it explains more than it needs too.

exceeds the requirements, defeating the purpose--it uses the same effect repeatedly in a scene, sucking away power.

In an upcoming series of posts, I'll examine examples of each of these overwriting "sins" so you can identify them in your own work, then discuss solutions.


Are there other frequently-used critique terms that confuse you?

Overwriting (part 1): What is it?

Monday, May 24, 2010 Laurel Garver
If you've participated in critique groups, writing workshops or online forums, you may have seen or heard someone's piece criticized for being "overwritten." But what does that mean exactly?

Dictionary.com gives us a few useful definitions for "overwrite":

1.to write in too elaborate, burdensome, diffuse, or prolix a style: He overwrites his essays to the point of absurdity.

2.to write in excess of the requirements, esp. so as to defeat the original intention: That young playwright tends to overwrite her big scenes.

From these definitions, let's break down the key terms.

Overwritten fiction is...

too elaborate--its tone and voice don't fit the characters and situation.

burdensome--it is dense and difficult to understand.

diffuse--it goes on tangents, lacks focus.

prolix--it rambles and it explains more than it needs too.

exceeds the requirements, defeating the purpose--it uses the same effect repeatedly in a scene, sucking away power.

In an upcoming series of posts, I'll examine examples of each of these overwriting "sins" so you can identify them in your own work, then discuss solutions.


Are there other frequently-used critique terms that confuse you?
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City dweller, word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile. Professor's wife and mom to a young adult daughter. Follower of the Good Shepherd, who is faithful when we are faithless. My poetry and fiction explore the places where heart and soul are tested and growing up truly begins.

I'm also a freelance editor who has been editing professionally since 1991. How can I help you make your manuscript shine? Click my "editing services" tab to learn more

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