I'm alive!
Hee! And, I've been working on stuff to post - honest! It's just that it's taken all week to get this thing finished and semi-whipped into shape. Spring has sprung and my time to write at work has been seriously limited. Anyway, I do have an offering today - my thoughts on some common problems I've spotted here and there, and some suggestions as to how to fix them. I'm sure, as usual, I'm preaching to the choir here; but at least it will go into the memories and will be there for new members to consult.
I'm addressing issues with writing style, which is something an author can work on and improve just by watching out for the major pitfalls listed below. I think some of the most common writing style issues can be divided into three major areas that cause problems with the readability of a story.
1 - Too many short, choppy sentences
This first one is not completely wrong, in and of itself; but when overused, it quickly becomes boring and annoying. That would be the story that is written in a series of very short, declarative sentences. You may remember them from first grade readers?
“See Spike run. Run, Spike. Run fast. See Buffy stab the demon. Stab, stab. Good Buffy!”
Now using short, choppy sentences can be an effective writing technique - if it’s used infrequently and for an effect. For instance:
Spike froze. Buffy! He sensed her. She was in trouble. He sniffed the air quickly and raised his sword. Where was she? He had to find her. He dodged and rolled. and so forth
Now, if the whole story were like that, it would get old very quickly; but it works well for a short section where you want to give an impression of urgency or action. So often, though, an entire story is written in short, unimaginative sentences that leave the reader yawning.
Buffy got out of bed. She opened the drapes to let in the sun. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then she got dressed. She went downstairs. “Hi, Dawn,” she said. She poured a bowl of cereal. Dawn made a face at her. “Hi, Buffy,” she answered.
What could we do to fix the above paragraph? How can we make it more interesting? How about if we look for ways to combine some of those short, declarative sentences into something that reads a bit more smoothly?
Buffy rolled out of bed and opened the drapes, letting in the morning sun and basking briefly in its warmth. After brushing her teeth and putting on some clothes, she made her way downstairs. “Hi, Dawn,” she said as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. “Hi, Buffy,” Dawn mumbled, making a face at her sister.
Okay - not exactly Pulitzer material - but a bit smoother than the original. As a general rule, except when being used judiciously and to create a specific effect, a lot of declarative sentences that stand alone are going to end up sounding juvenile and boring. I’m not saying that every sentence you write has to be long and complicated (because, we’re going to deal with long and complicated in the next little lecture), but your story will flow more smoothly and be more entertaining to read if you have varied your sentences in both style and length.
As an addendum: dialogue that is well written and in character should not need to have “he said, she said” after every single line. Once you’ve begun an exchange of dialogue between two characters, you should be able to carry on for some time before you have to remind the reader of which one is speaking. Just don’t let it go on so long that the reader loses track of who said what to whom.
“Stop!” Buffy yelled.
“Don’t want to,” Spike grumbled.
“I don’t care. Do it anyway.”
“Bossy bint.”
“I heard that!”
“You were meant to.”
“Stupid vampire.”
“Smarter than you are, Slayer.”
“Shut up, Spike.”
“Fine!”
“Good!”
Now, picture that same conversation with he said, she said after every line.
“Stop!” Buffy yelled.
“Don’t want to,” Spike grumbled.
“I don’t care. Do it anyway,” she said.
“Bossy bint,” he said.
“I heard that!” she said.
“You were meant to,” he said.
“Stupid vampire,” she said.
“Smarter than you are, Slayer,” he replied.
“Shut up, Spike,” she said.
“Fine!” he answered.
“Good!” she replied.
Not as snappy, is it? So, when dialogue is involved, less may very well be more.
Bottom line- if you’re inclined to use a lot of very short declarative sentences, try varying your prose just a bit. Instead of “Buffy walked across the room. She scratched her butt and looked in the mirror. Then she opened the drapes. She adjusted them so that Spike wouldn’t be in the sun.” try something like: “As Buffy walked across the room, she glanced at herself in the mirror and scratched her butt in a ladylike fashion. Carefully opening the heavy drapes, she made sure to adjust them so as to keep the sun’s rays away from her sleeping vampire.”
Again, not exactly quote-worthy, but you can see what I mean. Play with your sentences - vary them a bit. Short, short, then a longer one. Or long, long and then a couple of short ones. Use punctuation, conjunctions and all the variations of terms in our rich language to make your writing interesting and smooth.
2 - run-on sentences and unrelated clauses and phrases.
What happens when an author has gone whole hog in the other direction? And, trust me, they do go whole hog the other way. For every writer who can’t string more than ten words together, there is another one who cannot end a sentence to save her life. Someone who writes something like this where she just goes on and on, connecting the parts with commas or ‘ands’ and never pausing for breath or to notice that maybe she subject matter has changed and she really needs to rearrange some stuff so that the sentence makes sense to anyone who might still be reading, having not abandoned the fic entirely by this point and left the building, has the opposite problem.
What to do with that one? Hmm - let me see... What’s wrong with it? Other than, obviously, if you tried to read it aloud, you would run out of breath long before the end. LOL Most often, in these cases, the best thing is to start over and re-write the sentences, putting those parts that would logically go together, together, and making separate sentences of those that don’t. Someone who writes something like this, where she just goes on and on - connecting the parts with conjunctions and commas without noticing that the subject matter has changed - has the opposite problem. Ideally, the writer would notice those run-on sentences and find ways to rearrange the clauses into shorter, more coherent sentences. Hee! I made that one so bad, I can’t even find a way to fix it. Oh well. Let’s try something else.
The key things to remember about run-on sentences are that they need to end when the thought ends. You cannot connect “Spike ran after Buffy and tackled her to the ground, brushing his hand across her face, the ground erupting beneath them and the demon howling for their blood.” with commas and conjunctions. These are two separate and distinct events and require their own sentences. Were they slightly more closely related, it might be possible to use a semi-colon to connect the independent clauses. “Spike ran after Buffy and tackled her to the ground, brushing his hand across her face in apology as he did so; she smiled her forgiveness.” That might work. The erupting ground and pissed off demon would still have to have their own sentence because they have nothing to do with Spike and Buffy’s little interlude.
I’ve see the above mistake so often lately, and I’m not sure why it’s such a problem. It could be that the writer’s brain is just getting ahead of her and she is already thinking about that next sentence while still typing the first one. Or, she hasn’t read through carefully enough to notice that she had two completely separate events or thoughts in the same sentence. I’m not sure, but it is something that both writers and their betas need to watch out for.
One of the hints for helping writers to figure out where they may need a comma is to read the sentence aloud and listen for where you naturally pause while reading it. You can also figure out where and how to break up a sentence that is too long by using the same technique and listening for the longer pauses. Chances are, those places are good candidates for the use of periods or semi-colons. If you had to stop and gasp for breath, that’s probably where you needed to end that sentence - if not before.
3 - Eschew obfuscation!
Hee! Is there an English department anywhere that doesn’t have this little sign hanging up in someone’s office?
In addition to the above issues with having sentences that contain more than one thought or event, there are other ways to leave readers shaking their heads. Why would you want to confuse and confound your readers by using hundred-dollar words (often incorrectly - oops - different complaint!) when a ten-dollar word would do? Is there a happy medium between the above “See Spike run. Run, Spike. Run fast. See Buffy stab the demon. Stab, stab. Good Buffy!” and it’s direct opposite: Observe Spike scamper. Hasten, Spike, hasten. Sprint apace. Perceive Buffy prick the demon. Prick, prick. Magnificent Buffy!? Or, worse yet, They watched the frenetic vampire bursting towards the scene. Oh, quickly, Spike; speed as though the hounds of hell were on your trail. Gasp in overwhelming gratitude as you celebrate Buffy’s eliminationing of the demon. Pierce, rend, tear. Ah, effulgent Slayer. Your destiny has once again fullfilled you.
Okay, I obviously cheated a bit in the above tries at making something that was originally perhaps too clear into something that was not clear at all. I did, in fact, use a thesaurus to help me find not-quite-synonyms for some of the words. And I made one up. Go me! LOL The point I’m trying (unsuccessfully, I fear) to make here, is that it is possible to become too descriptive, too lyrical, and too ‘original’ in your prose; thereby over-writing what may well have been an entertaining or heartbreaking story.
I’m finding it very difficult to come up with good examples of this sort of over-writing without using actual quotes from specific stories. I don’t want to do that, so I’m faking it as best I can. LOL Somewhere in the memories (I hope) or in the past entries, is the one where I gave some examples from other fandoms of convoluted and/or just plain bad writing. There were some excellent examples there, if I remember correctly. I have found one in my “misc. docs.” file, but I have a feeling - just from the way it reads - that I know who wrote it, so I guess I’d best keep it to myself. It must be one that someone sent me to use and I filed it away because I was afraid to use it without knowing for sure that the author or her friends wouldn’t see it. LOL Too bad - it’s perfect.
There are a few writers in the fandom *cough, lizerrrbeathan, cough* who can successfully write in a very lyrical and original manner without losing the reader in the process. But for every writer who can do that and leave their readers with both a clear understanding of the action and an appreciation of the writing style itself, there are half a dozen who simply leave the reader going “Huh? Wha-? He did what?”
I don’t mind having to reread a sentence here or there every once in while to be sure I’ve understood what’s going on; but when I have to stop and shake my head every second or third sentence to try to clear it of all the extraneous words and information...
It may seem as though these are contradictory complaints - too simple vs too complicated -- but they aren’t really. The key is to find that happy medium between too “creative” and too plain. When in doubt, go for the clear, concise and easy-to-read version - then look for reasonable ways to combine sentences or replace frequently-used words so as to make the writing a bit more interesting. One of the highest compliments a writer can receive, IMHO, is that the reader was so into the story that they never noticed how it was written. In other words, the writing disappeared and only the story remained. With the (very) rare exception of author's whose style is a pleasure to read for itself, having the writing disappear should be a goal for every author. Even with Lizerrrbeathan’s distinctive writing style, you eventually become so immersed in the story that the style in which it is written fades into the background. With a lesser storyteller, too distinctive a style could easily result in a reader’s just being so distracted by the writing that he/she couldn’t enjoy the story.
So, for those of us without that gift, it’s best to concentrate on writing in such a way that the tale that you are telling and your characters are all the reader notices or remembers. Certainly, there is room for poetry and lyricism in writing prose; and I would not want anyone to stiffle their own creativity to the point that they couldn’t enjoy what they were doing. However, if that enjoyment and creativity is making the story difficult, confusing or painful to read, then it isn’t working.
Which really brings us back to that mainstay of good writing - don’t do anything that is going to jar the reader out of your story, even if it’s only for a few seconds. Be sure it’s beta’d so that distracting typos are kept to a minimum; avoid repetitive punctuation/spelling errors (beta, again); and try to tell the story in such a way that your writing style doesn’t overshadow it, but instead, presents it in the least distracting manner possible.
I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open for some reason, so if the above rambles and is incoherent, I apologize. I simply can't concentrate when I try to re-read it.
I'm addressing issues with writing style, which is something an author can work on and improve just by watching out for the major pitfalls listed below. I think some of the most common writing style issues can be divided into three major areas that cause problems with the readability of a story.
1 - Too many short, choppy sentences
This first one is not completely wrong, in and of itself; but when overused, it quickly becomes boring and annoying. That would be the story that is written in a series of very short, declarative sentences. You may remember them from first grade readers?
“See Spike run. Run, Spike. Run fast. See Buffy stab the demon. Stab, stab. Good Buffy!”
Now using short, choppy sentences can be an effective writing technique - if it’s used infrequently and for an effect. For instance:
Spike froze. Buffy! He sensed her. She was in trouble. He sniffed the air quickly and raised his sword. Where was she? He had to find her. He dodged and rolled. and so forth
Now, if the whole story were like that, it would get old very quickly; but it works well for a short section where you want to give an impression of urgency or action. So often, though, an entire story is written in short, unimaginative sentences that leave the reader yawning.
Buffy got out of bed. She opened the drapes to let in the sun. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then she got dressed. She went downstairs. “Hi, Dawn,” she said. She poured a bowl of cereal. Dawn made a face at her. “Hi, Buffy,” she answered.
What could we do to fix the above paragraph? How can we make it more interesting? How about if we look for ways to combine some of those short, declarative sentences into something that reads a bit more smoothly?
Buffy rolled out of bed and opened the drapes, letting in the morning sun and basking briefly in its warmth. After brushing her teeth and putting on some clothes, she made her way downstairs. “Hi, Dawn,” she said as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. “Hi, Buffy,” Dawn mumbled, making a face at her sister.
Okay - not exactly Pulitzer material - but a bit smoother than the original. As a general rule, except when being used judiciously and to create a specific effect, a lot of declarative sentences that stand alone are going to end up sounding juvenile and boring. I’m not saying that every sentence you write has to be long and complicated (because, we’re going to deal with long and complicated in the next little lecture), but your story will flow more smoothly and be more entertaining to read if you have varied your sentences in both style and length.
As an addendum: dialogue that is well written and in character should not need to have “he said, she said” after every single line. Once you’ve begun an exchange of dialogue between two characters, you should be able to carry on for some time before you have to remind the reader of which one is speaking. Just don’t let it go on so long that the reader loses track of who said what to whom.
“Stop!” Buffy yelled.
“Don’t want to,” Spike grumbled.
“I don’t care. Do it anyway.”
“Bossy bint.”
“I heard that!”
“You were meant to.”
“Stupid vampire.”
“Smarter than you are, Slayer.”
“Shut up, Spike.”
“Fine!”
“Good!”
Now, picture that same conversation with he said, she said after every line.
“Stop!” Buffy yelled.
“Don’t want to,” Spike grumbled.
“I don’t care. Do it anyway,” she said.
“Bossy bint,” he said.
“I heard that!” she said.
“You were meant to,” he said.
“Stupid vampire,” she said.
“Smarter than you are, Slayer,” he replied.
“Shut up, Spike,” she said.
“Fine!” he answered.
“Good!” she replied.
Not as snappy, is it? So, when dialogue is involved, less may very well be more.
Bottom line- if you’re inclined to use a lot of very short declarative sentences, try varying your prose just a bit. Instead of “Buffy walked across the room. She scratched her butt and looked in the mirror. Then she opened the drapes. She adjusted them so that Spike wouldn’t be in the sun.” try something like: “As Buffy walked across the room, she glanced at herself in the mirror and scratched her butt in a ladylike fashion. Carefully opening the heavy drapes, she made sure to adjust them so as to keep the sun’s rays away from her sleeping vampire.”
Again, not exactly quote-worthy, but you can see what I mean. Play with your sentences - vary them a bit. Short, short, then a longer one. Or long, long and then a couple of short ones. Use punctuation, conjunctions and all the variations of terms in our rich language to make your writing interesting and smooth.
2 - run-on sentences and unrelated clauses and phrases.
What happens when an author has gone whole hog in the other direction? And, trust me, they do go whole hog the other way. For every writer who can’t string more than ten words together, there is another one who cannot end a sentence to save her life. Someone who writes something like this where she just goes on and on, connecting the parts with commas or ‘ands’ and never pausing for breath or to notice that maybe she subject matter has changed and she really needs to rearrange some stuff so that the sentence makes sense to anyone who might still be reading, having not abandoned the fic entirely by this point and left the building, has the opposite problem.
What to do with that one? Hmm - let me see... What’s wrong with it? Other than, obviously, if you tried to read it aloud, you would run out of breath long before the end. LOL Most often, in these cases, the best thing is to start over and re-write the sentences, putting those parts that would logically go together, together, and making separate sentences of those that don’t. Someone who writes something like this, where she just goes on and on - connecting the parts with conjunctions and commas without noticing that the subject matter has changed - has the opposite problem. Ideally, the writer would notice those run-on sentences and find ways to rearrange the clauses into shorter, more coherent sentences. Hee! I made that one so bad, I can’t even find a way to fix it. Oh well. Let’s try something else.
The key things to remember about run-on sentences are that they need to end when the thought ends. You cannot connect “Spike ran after Buffy and tackled her to the ground, brushing his hand across her face, the ground erupting beneath them and the demon howling for their blood.” with commas and conjunctions. These are two separate and distinct events and require their own sentences. Were they slightly more closely related, it might be possible to use a semi-colon to connect the independent clauses. “Spike ran after Buffy and tackled her to the ground, brushing his hand across her face in apology as he did so; she smiled her forgiveness.” That might work. The erupting ground and pissed off demon would still have to have their own sentence because they have nothing to do with Spike and Buffy’s little interlude.
I’ve see the above mistake so often lately, and I’m not sure why it’s such a problem. It could be that the writer’s brain is just getting ahead of her and she is already thinking about that next sentence while still typing the first one. Or, she hasn’t read through carefully enough to notice that she had two completely separate events or thoughts in the same sentence. I’m not sure, but it is something that both writers and their betas need to watch out for.
One of the hints for helping writers to figure out where they may need a comma is to read the sentence aloud and listen for where you naturally pause while reading it. You can also figure out where and how to break up a sentence that is too long by using the same technique and listening for the longer pauses. Chances are, those places are good candidates for the use of periods or semi-colons. If you had to stop and gasp for breath, that’s probably where you needed to end that sentence - if not before.
3 - Eschew obfuscation!
Hee! Is there an English department anywhere that doesn’t have this little sign hanging up in someone’s office?
In addition to the above issues with having sentences that contain more than one thought or event, there are other ways to leave readers shaking their heads. Why would you want to confuse and confound your readers by using hundred-dollar words (often incorrectly - oops - different complaint!) when a ten-dollar word would do? Is there a happy medium between the above “See Spike run. Run, Spike. Run fast. See Buffy stab the demon. Stab, stab. Good Buffy!” and it’s direct opposite: Observe Spike scamper. Hasten, Spike, hasten. Sprint apace. Perceive Buffy prick the demon. Prick, prick. Magnificent Buffy!? Or, worse yet, They watched the frenetic vampire bursting towards the scene. Oh, quickly, Spike; speed as though the hounds of hell were on your trail. Gasp in overwhelming gratitude as you celebrate Buffy’s eliminationing of the demon. Pierce, rend, tear. Ah, effulgent Slayer. Your destiny has once again fullfilled you.
Okay, I obviously cheated a bit in the above tries at making something that was originally perhaps too clear into something that was not clear at all. I did, in fact, use a thesaurus to help me find not-quite-synonyms for some of the words. And I made one up. Go me! LOL The point I’m trying (unsuccessfully, I fear) to make here, is that it is possible to become too descriptive, too lyrical, and too ‘original’ in your prose; thereby over-writing what may well have been an entertaining or heartbreaking story.
I’m finding it very difficult to come up with good examples of this sort of over-writing without using actual quotes from specific stories. I don’t want to do that, so I’m faking it as best I can. LOL Somewhere in the memories (I hope) or in the past entries, is the one where I gave some examples from other fandoms of convoluted and/or just plain bad writing. There were some excellent examples there, if I remember correctly. I have found one in my “misc. docs.” file, but I have a feeling - just from the way it reads - that I know who wrote it, so I guess I’d best keep it to myself. It must be one that someone sent me to use and I filed it away because I was afraid to use it without knowing for sure that the author or her friends wouldn’t see it. LOL Too bad - it’s perfect.
There are a few writers in the fandom *cough, lizerrrbeathan, cough* who can successfully write in a very lyrical and original manner without losing the reader in the process. But for every writer who can do that and leave their readers with both a clear understanding of the action and an appreciation of the writing style itself, there are half a dozen who simply leave the reader going “Huh? Wha-? He did what?”
I don’t mind having to reread a sentence here or there every once in while to be sure I’ve understood what’s going on; but when I have to stop and shake my head every second or third sentence to try to clear it of all the extraneous words and information...
It may seem as though these are contradictory complaints - too simple vs too complicated -- but they aren’t really. The key is to find that happy medium between too “creative” and too plain. When in doubt, go for the clear, concise and easy-to-read version - then look for reasonable ways to combine sentences or replace frequently-used words so as to make the writing a bit more interesting. One of the highest compliments a writer can receive, IMHO, is that the reader was so into the story that they never noticed how it was written. In other words, the writing disappeared and only the story remained. With the (very) rare exception of author's whose style is a pleasure to read for itself, having the writing disappear should be a goal for every author. Even with Lizerrrbeathan’s distinctive writing style, you eventually become so immersed in the story that the style in which it is written fades into the background. With a lesser storyteller, too distinctive a style could easily result in a reader’s just being so distracted by the writing that he/she couldn’t enjoy the story.
So, for those of us without that gift, it’s best to concentrate on writing in such a way that the tale that you are telling and your characters are all the reader notices or remembers. Certainly, there is room for poetry and lyricism in writing prose; and I would not want anyone to stiffle their own creativity to the point that they couldn’t enjoy what they were doing. However, if that enjoyment and creativity is making the story difficult, confusing or painful to read, then it isn’t working.
Which really brings us back to that mainstay of good writing - don’t do anything that is going to jar the reader out of your story, even if it’s only for a few seconds. Be sure it’s beta’d so that distracting typos are kept to a minimum; avoid repetitive punctuation/spelling errors (beta, again); and try to tell the story in such a way that your writing style doesn’t overshadow it, but instead, presents it in the least distracting manner possible.
I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open for some reason, so if the above rambles and is incoherent, I apologize. I simply can't concentrate when I try to re-read it.