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Fundamentals of Fiction, Part X:
Avoid Those Beginners' Blunders
by Marg Gilks
"Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a
blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your
forehead." -- Gene Fowler
You've written a great story, sent it out again and again, but
it keeps being rejected. Why? What are some of the writing
blunders you may be committing that set red "amateur" flags
waving for agents and publishers -- and invariably earn your
story a rejection slip?
They're Only Empty Words
Blonde bombshell, guns blazing,
go the extra mile, passed with flying colors, under cover of
darkness. Cliches like these pepper our everyday speech, but in a
story, they're a red flag. When you think about it, what
information does a cliche convey to a reader? What does it mean
to pass with flying colors? Why would a sexy woman be called a
bombshell? What's attractive about a bombshell? When you use
cliches in your writing instead of creating original descriptions
that actually engage the reader's senses and emotions, you're
writing words that the reader will find very easy to forget.
Like cliches, empty modifiers like adjectives and adverbs are
the sign of weak writing, produced by a writer without the
imagination or the skill needed to create evocative descriptions
that add depth to the story. Used to excess, they clutter up a
story with empty words that distract the reader as she tries to
envision an image that the words just aren't conjuring.
Used in place of more vivid language, adverbs and adjectives
are just as commonplace as cliches. "Fluffy white clouds" --
ho-hum. Why not clouds that hang in the sky like dollops of
whipped cream, or that are as plump as popcorn? "They moved
quickly down the street." How fast is quickly? Are they running,
or speeding along in a car? If you replace the weak verb "moved"
with one that's more specific, you wouldn't have to use the
adverb "quickly" at all: They dashed down the street, or flew
down the street on their bicycles.
"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader --
not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained
upon," said E.L. Doctorow, author of Billy Bathgate. A memorable
story is one that readers experience. Get specific. Paint word
pictures for your readers instead of falling back on tired
phrases and descriptors, and you'll create a story that
publishers will want to share with their readers.
Tell Me No More!
Many beginning writers, faced with the dilemma of conveying
background information or character details to the reader, go the
obvious route -- they throw it all at the reader in a big,
expository lump of facts often called an "info dump." They tell
the reader everything.
Readers pick up a story to be entertained, not to be lectured.
Nobody likes to be told what to think; like you, readers want to
form their own opinions. Whenever possible, show the reader what
she needs to know about a character or a society or a setting --
persuade her to form an opinion that matches your goals in
writing the scene or creating the character. If you have to
resort to telling, feed it to the reader in manageable bits,
woven into the story here and there, so the reader doesn't
realize she's learning anything.
"Okay," you think, "the reader needs to know what my character
looks like, so I'll have him look in a mirror, and describe what
he sees." Or: "Well, if two of my characters tell each other what
the reader needs to know, then that's showing because it's
dialogue, not exposition."
Don't. Neither solution is effective showing, it's telling
with props -- and such a common blunder among beginners that the
techniques themselves are considered cliches: "Sarah looked in
the mirror and saw a pretty red-haired girl with green eyes and a
freckled nose staring back at her." Do you look in the mirror and
see that? Or do you notice you need a shave or a haircut, or grin
to examine your teeth? If you're not noticing your physical
description, your character wouldn't naturally notice this,
either.
"As you know," you have one of your characters say, "we have
been walking through this desert for the past five days, and it
is quite hot. We have no water -- we'll have to find some soon,
or we'll die." To which your other character responds, "Indeed.
You know I'm the world's foremost expert on skin cancer, and
these sunburns can't be doing us any good at all." Are you
laughing yet? I hope so! Nobody talks like this. So don't make
your characters say things they wouldn't say naturally, just for
the sake of conveying information.
Inept showing like this is just as bad as an info dump, and
will earn you a rejection just as quickly. As with avoiding empty
words, put a little more effort into how you convey information
to the reader, so it becomes an experience, not an effort to
read.
Head-hopping
You'll probably notice when reading a contemporary novel that the
story seems to be told in the voice of only one character. If
there seems to be more than one character telling the story --
different viewpoints -- if you pay close attention to each scene
within that novel, you'll probably find that only one character
seems to be sharing his or her perceptions of events in the scene
with the reader. The character whose eyes readers see story
events through, whose thoughts the reader "hears" in a scene or
throughout a story or novel is called the point of view
character. This is called "limited" point of view, and it's the
most common form you'll see, because today's readers like getting
right inside a character's head to experience the story.
The point of view (POV) that most novice writers fall into,
however, is "omniscient" point of view. In this point of view,
the narrator is all-knowing and all-seeing, popping from one
character's head into another, making the reader privy to
everyone's thoughts and everything that's going on, even if that
activity is off-stage, in the past or in the present or in the
future. There is a lot of explaining -- the omniscient narrator
tells the reader what everyone is thinking and what is going
on.
Sounds pretty good, huh. Look at that description of
omniscient point of view again -- the narrator is telling.
Telling instead of showing is one of those red flags for
rejection, remember? With omniscient, you are leaving nothing to
the reader's imagination. You're not allowing the reader to
participate, to experience, but merely to observe. For this
reason, while omniscient POV is a legitimate point of view, it
has fallen out of favor with today's readers.
If point of view hops from one character to another within a
scene in your novel or story, it will be perceived by an agent or
publisher as poor writing. Manipulating point of view to best
effect or maintaining it consistently takes attention and
practice, but it's one skill that sets more experienced authors
apart from novices, and well worth learning.
Mechanics
Yes, this is the icky stuff -- the grammar and punctuation and
spelling that you'd rather not think about. But agents and
publishers think about it -- in fact, it's the quickest way for
them to tell if a manuscript is worth anything beyond a cursory
look. If, in that first glance, they see too many mechanical
errors, they're not likely to give the story itself a chance.
Agent Noah Lukeman, author of The First Five Pages: A
Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, cites
misuse of the question mark -- a common blunder -- as reason
enough for a rejection. "The same holds true for the exclamation
point," and, to a lesser degree, parentheses, he says. Think of
it -- a simple little question mark could doom your story.
Punctuation marks are the most obvious red flags. You also
have to watch out for the sneakier grammatical pitfalls, like
dangling or misplaced modifiers and passive voice. A misplaced
modifier occurs when a word or phrase is placed next to a word
that it can't possibly describe: Growling furiously, jaws
snapping, the hunter trussed the bear cub. It's a good bet the
writer intended the bear cub to growl and snap, but written this
way, it's the hunter! A dangling modifier happens when a word or
phrase has been dropped: While eating lunch, the crocodile swam
past the dock. If the croc wasn't doing the eating, this sentence
needs the lunchers to be complete -- While we were eating lunch.
Both of these grammatical blunders can create reader confusion at
best or, at worst, unintentional humor at your expense.
What is passive voice? While active voice describes an action
a character is doing, passive voice describes what is being done
-- it conveys no action: "she put the books on the shelf" as
opposed to the passive "the books were put on the shelf." The
very structure of passive verbs suggests that an action took
place in the past, not the present. Remember, today's readers
want to feel as if they're right there in the story, experiencing
events. Active voice is simpler, less wordy, and is more
immediate.
Take the time to brush up on grammar and punctuation; take a
moment to look up the correct spelling of a word you're not sure
of; go over your manuscript carefully when you're done,
correcting typos and any other small errors that may detract or
distract. It's worth the effort.
You've probably realized by now that writing a good story
takes more effort than simply sitting down and dashing off the
first words that come to mind. But more effort means a greater
likelihood that the finished product will earn publication -- not
rejection slips.
For More Information:
- The Top Ten Mistakes New Authors Make, by Sally Zigmond
-
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/mistakes.shtml
- Negotiating the World of Words, by Brenda Ross
-
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/words.shtml
- Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life, by Moira Allen
-
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/settings.shtml
- Five Fiction Mistakes that Spell Rejection, by Moira Allen
-
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/fivemistakes.shtml
- Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid "Stepping Out of Character", by Marg Gilks
- http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/POV.shtml
Read the Entire "Fundamentals of Fiction" Series!
Part I: "I've Got an Idea!"
You've got an idea -- but how do you turn it into a story?
Part II: Read, Read, Read!
If you want to write, you need to read -- and read, and read, and read! Here's why...
Part III: Critique Groups and Writers' Groups
How do you know if you're "good enough"? Feedback from a critique group can help!
Part IV: Writers Write!
Facing that blank screen can be intimidating. Here's how to get past the fear.
Part V: Learning How: Courses, Workshops and Tutors
For in-depth learning and feedback, nothing beats a good writing course.
Part VI: Learning the Lingo
Deciphering writers' guidelines -- and all the other terms associated with writing and selling fiction.
Part VII: Being Realistic
Before you mail out that story you just finished, be sure you know how the market works -- and whether you're ready for it!
Part VIII: Finding Markets for Your Fiction
It's not just about sending out your best writing; it's also about finding the best market.
Part IX: Writing Etiquette
Understanding some basic courtesies will smooth your writing path!
Part X: Avoid Those Beginners' Blunders
Cliches, lazy language, adverbitis, and characters who check themselves out in a mirror are just a few amateur errors that will send your story to the reject pile.
Copyright © 2003 Marg Gilks
Marg Gilks' short stories, poetry, and articles have been appearing in newspapers, newsletters, magazines, and e-zines since 1977. She considers writing fiction, especially sf/f, the ultimate form of escapism -- in what other field can you create your own universe? Contact her with feedback and queries through Scripta Word Services, her freelance editing business: http://www.scripta-word-services.com/.
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