I have sent off my query letters, and now I’m waiting for the end of summer. Most agents have said they will reply in two months, or not. In the meantime, I’m going through my manuscript to see what else I can do to improve it. Well, that and getting on the water with the kids.
To help with the process I went back to the rules I’ve added to my writing notebook. A few are about proper grammar that I stumble on, but most are about improving my writing craft. Are there more? Yes, so many more. But for whatever reason these are the ones I felt needed to be written down while I was working on my book.
I’ve gathered many of these from two podcasts I regularly listen to: James Thayer’s “The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel” and Savannah Gilbo’s “Fiction Writing Made Easy.” And books such as Steven King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the craft.”
At this very moment, I’m reviewing every time I wrote “paused.” I’m quite surprised that I use this word so often, and in nearly every case, the sentence I rewrote is better without it. Either I eliminated the word entirely, or I added more detail.
When I come across the word I ask myself, “What was that person doing when they paused?” An edit I particularly appreciated was a scene on the beach when Mr. Tanaka (Yes, you’ll need to read the book to find out who he is) returned to the group. He was very old and frail. In my original draft, I wrote that he paused before getting up. When I saw the word “paused” I realized the opportunity to describe how frail he was. It was a simple change, but the word “pause” really said the wrong thing about what he was doing.
My list (so far) of rules to improve my writing
- Show rather than tell. “She pulled her sweater closer around her and shivered.” instead of, “She was cold.” This is a tough one. There are times when I just want to say how they feel and move on to keep the story moving, but I’m always happier when I can write in this way.
- Use a stronger verb instead of a verb and an adverb. Instead of “ate quickly,” say “bolted his food.” This is one you have to think of when you’re writing. It’s not easy to go back and search for these sentences that can be improved.
- Characters with accents or poor grammar: instead of trying to spell out how they speak, say something like, “She spoke with a Thai accent.” or “She spoke with a southern drawl.”
- Avoid stop signs like didn’t or not. Instead of saying, “She didn’t eat her food.” say “She was still hungry.” Instead of “The sun wasn’t out.” try “It was cloudy.”
- Leave out the things people will want to skip over. In other words, cut, cut, cut.
- Use active voice rather than passive voice. “He flew the plane.” instead of, “The plane was flown by him.” (Subject verb instead of object verb subject) A passive sentence can be used for variety if using a lot of active voice. Or to show weakness.
- Dialogue (Subject verb): “Jones said.” Not, “said Jones,” or, “asked Jones,” or, “the driver said.” The dialogue after the speaker’s name is smoother. I’ve also tried to find as many situations as possible where I could talk about the speaker before the quote when I was tempted to use “Jones asked,” or “Jones said with dismay.”
- One paragraph per speaker.
- Avoid “there.” “The ship steamed toward the pier.” instead of “There was a ship steaming toward the peer.”
- Dialogue that continues to a second paragraph. Start each subsequent paragraph with an opening quotation mark, and only use a closing quotation mark on the final paragraph.
- Remove “less” or included words like “stood,” “reach,” etc. Instead of saying, “He stood and walked to the door.” just say “He walked to the door.”
- Remove “paused” and “suddenly.” These add nothing and draw attention away from the action. The cougar doesn’t pause and then jump. Hesitated and waited are generally not needed either. Readers want the story to progress in real-time.
- Use the senses of smell, sight, touch, and taste in your descriptions. Play with contrast or the senses that drive love, fear, nostalgia, etc.
- Don’t use filters. Filters add how the character perceives something. Saying, “The driver climbed down from the cab of the truck,” is stronger than saying, “He saw the driver climb down from the cab of the truck.”
- Remove direct answers, yes or no, from the dialogue.