Header PromotionThis has been an interesting set of edits for me. I have a new editor and much as I love Angie---Hi Angie!---I've really enjoyed the process. Plus, new editor, new tricks!
We all have bad writing habits. Or we develop them as we go. Or we're just lazy. But the crime is when we call those mistakes "style". And one of the things I realized of late that I've been doing is "filtering". That's when you're telling something through the eyes of a character, but you don't have to.
This is a danger in the "Show, Don't Tell" school of thought, and quite easy to fall into. You need to show someone else's responses without head hopping. The temptation is to see everything through the eyes of your POV character.
Jenny watched George close his eyes, the lids tight with obvious pain.
But the rest of the scene is already in "Jenny's" POV. It's like adding an unnecessary dialogue tag or worse, putting the name of who you're talking to at the end of every line. It's not style. It's not showing. It's telling what you're showing. You could just concisely say:
George closed his eyes, the lids tight with obvious pain.
So, to give credit where credit is due, I'll quote the lovely Deborah Nemeth (who is rather bravely guiding me through the perils of grammar despite all my whining):
"(This) refers to words such as felt, thought, decided, wondered, remembered, knew, realized, figured, assumed, worked out, saw, watched, looked, and heard. These are all words which "tell" the reader information rather than "showing" it (i.e. giving them the impression that they're discovering it for themselves). Of course, all writing is telling, but these words make the process a little more obvious. It's often fine to use filter words—they can be an effective and economical way of conveying information. However, if they're used too much, and particularly if they're used in action scenes, they can distance the reader and slow the pace. This is because the reader gets the information through the "filter" of the character's experience, thus reminding them that they're being told about the scene.
So, if this tip helps you, Yay. It's totally slicing and dicing my current word count, but in a good way. Plus, it means less editing later if you learn to do it as you're writing. :)
Dee
Dee Tenorio
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
I like this blog, Dee.
And I, for one, am glad to accept all the professional advice I can reap since my dearest aspiration is to shoot for a Liz Fielding-like career of fifty books! <GG>
I was always told that in order to avoid telling the story rather than showing it, a writer should engage the five senses: Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Do you feel this is a good technique?
Also, what about incomplete sentences? I find that the most contemporay novels have a lot of two or three-word fractures. Sometimes even a single word. Do you think this helps to give emotional punch to an especially intense scene? For instance: She was livid. As in, the seeing red kind of livid. Totally ready to lose it. Or is this style annoying to editors?
"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
- Mark Twain
Hey Amanda!
Well, I can't speak for all editors, of course (let's be honest, I annoy plenty of them), but no, there's a time and a place for those kinds of "impact" sentences in fiction.
I always stress to people that they need to make sure they know the rules before they break them, though. Still, I definitely use those kinds of structures.
As for the sense, yes, this is very important. The reader needs to feel the story as you go. You shouldn't have a checklist or anything, every time you start a scene. Layering---Julie Elizabeth Leto has a brilliant technique for this on her website---all the senses and emotions is at the heart of good writing.
Our job as writers is to make the reader FEEL the story. Even if we break their hearts a little. :)
Hugs,
Dee
Dee Tenorio
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."