Write Now Editing

Revision & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell (book review)

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Don’t let the revision process intimidate you any longer. Discover how to successfully transform your first draft into a polished final draft readers won’t be able to forget.

In Write Great Fiction: Revision & Self-Editing, James Scott Bell draws on his experience as a novelist and instructor to provide specific revision tips geared toward the first read-through, as well as targeted self-editing instruction focusing on the individual elements of a novel like plot, structure, characters, theme, voice, style, setting, and endings. You’ll learn how to:

•Write a cleaner first draft right out of the gate using Bell’s plotting principles
•Get the most out of revision and self-editing techniques by honing your skills with detailed exercises
•Systematically revise a completed draft using the ultimate revision checklist that talks you through the core story elements

Whether you’re in the process of writing a novel, have a finished draft you don’t know what to do with, or have a rejected manuscript you don’t know how to fix, Revision & Self-Editing gives you the guidance you need to write and revise like a pro.

It took a while to finish this book because I wasn’t expecting it to be so full of information — I tried reading a bit here and there but quickly discovered that I needed to give each chapter my full attention to really absorb the tips and suggestions. I think this book might be a little more right-brained than I am (some of the concepts seem too abstract for this left-brainer), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth trying. I’m looking forward to using some of these techniques on my next manuscript!

5 Ways Realism Ruins Good Fiction

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Let’s be honest—unless it’s vital to a plot, most people don’t want to read about a character’s bowel movements, mouthy kids, or hangnails. Often authors include mundane details to make their characters seem more realistic, but that realism doesn’t always come across well in books. Today we’re going to quickly look at five things you can reduce/eliminate from your manuscript to help strengthen your story.

  1. Small talk. If you were raised before cell phones, your calls probably started like this:
    “Hello, this is the Van Burens.”
    “Hi, is your mom there?”
    “May I ask who’s calling?”
    “Mr. Smith from the insurance agency.”
    “One moment, please.”
    It’s polite and informative, but in a book, it takes up too much space and slows down the story. You don’t necessarily want your characters to be rude, but you don’t need a hello/goodbye in every conversation either. And unless the weather is important to the plot, you don’t need to show people discussing it.
  2. Introspection. Most people overthink things, be it every decision they make or only those related to a specific subject. That’s normal. But it doesn’t work well in books. It’s okay—even expected—to have characters reflect on situations, but after they do it once, move on. You don’t need to remind your readers over and over again of a character’s ideas, nor do you need to show the characters thinking about every situation they experience. When you repeat thoughts/scenes/reactions, you give readers a reason to skip pages. Once they start to skip, they’ll keep skipping (so don’t give them a reason).
  3. Well, so, okay, etc. Just because people say it in real life doesn’t mean it needs to appear in your dialogue. It’s amazing how many times well and so appear in manuscripts when authors start their sentences with them—they can show up hundreds of times! That’s a lot of words that could be used to show something more important to the plot. The same is true for filler words such as like, okay, um, uh-huh. Leaving them out won’t make the dialogue feel unnatural but including too many of them will slow the pace and stand out as unnecessary.
  4. Step-by-step instructions. Every morning I wake up, let the dogs out, feed them, pack my husband’s lunch, then start breakfast. Not many people care, and they shouldn’t. It’s boring. So is explaining how to put the key in the ignition, start the car, throw it into reverse, pull out of the driveway, and slide it into drive before heading into town. Whether we want to or not, we live orderly lives—you often can’t do one thing (drive into town) without doing another thing first (starting the car). Readers don’t need to see each of those steps though. If it’s important to show a character’s nighttime routine, show it once. Then trust your reader to remember it and move on to other important details of the story.
  5. Repetition. Similar to #4 but slightly different, readers don’t need to see character repeating themselves. Yes, we’ve all had experiences where we had to tell the same story over and over again, but you don’t want to do that on the page. Remember #2? When you start repeating things, readers are tempted to skip pages. Don’t give them a reason! Find creative ways to convey what’s happening in a scene without actually repeating every detail. Your readers will thank you.

Yes, you want your characters to be realistic, but too much realism can slow down a story and kill the intensity. When you look for and cut back on these five things, you’ll naturally tighten your story without sacrificing characterization.

My sophomore novel—Practically Married—releases October 2019! Sign up for my monthly newsletter and you’ll receive sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes stories, and pictures of my cats and dogs. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for writing tips, updates on Guiding Light, and more!

Dialog by James R. Callan

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Whether we’ve seen the Declaration of Independence or not, we recognize this bold and stylish signature that identifies the president of the Second Continental Congress.

Signatures are important because they identify people. The bank honors our checks because they recognize our signature. Contracts depend on signatures because those distinguish the parties involved in the contract.

A written signature is a unique visual that identifies a specific person. I call the unique manner of speech that identifies a specific person that person’s Dialog Signature.

I suggest that you make up a dialog signature for each of your major characters before you even start writing the novel. Why? So that each character will have a distinct manner of speaking which the reader can recognize.

What makes up a dialog signature? Many things. Let’s  look at a few.

Vocabulary or word choice. Often our vocabulary reflects who we grew up. Did this character come from a rural area or a big city? Were his parents both college professors? Did he live over a bar as a teen? Was he from New York, Boston, New Orleans or Las Vegas and it shows in his speech.

Does your character have favorite words that show up more frequently than normal? Or perhaps marker words, common words overused by this person. How are favorite words and marker words different. A character might have a favorite word like “paradigm” and use it in most conversations. But a marker word would be a more common word (generally one which adds nothing), such as “like” or “just” and that word might show up in almost every sentence.

What is her sentence structure? Does she always speak in complete sentences, or perhaps compound sentences. Or maybe she doesn’t use complete sentences.

Volume? Terse or verbose?  Here, we’re not talking about how loud, but how many words. Two people can deliver the same information, but one uses the minimal number of words possible while the other may use five times as many words. 

Does she have a particular cadence in her dialog?

Is her speech playful, always serious, cautious, businesslike, offhand, snarky?

Does he have a regional dialect, or perhaps a foreign accent?

What is her eye contact mode? Does she look you in the eye, or avoid eye contact? Or does this depend on whether she is telling the truth or not?

Any particular body language? Yes, we are talking about dialog, but some studies show the words account for less than half of the information a person receives during dialog. Facial expression is an obvious and important element, but so is the position of the arms, posture, focus of the eyes, etc.. In this short discussion, we can’t cover body language adequately – books are written on it.  But, keep it in mind when developing a character’s dialog signature.

Here’s an example of a dialog signature for a character. 

Ron’s Dialog Signature
Flow: very deliberate person – thinks before responding
Mannerism: frequently begins with “Mmmmm.” 
Cadence: slow – never rushes
Style: usually businesslike or polite, never snarky
Sentence structure: usually speaks in complete sentences
Vocabulary: normal, with occasional words outside normal, but not
esoteric. Examples: paradigm, caveat
Regional dialect or accent: none
Body Language: always maintains eye contact. If responding to a
question, will likely nod several times before answering
Voice: soft spoken, almost never raises his voice
Favorite word: precisely
Favorite phrase: In my opinion
Volume: doesn’t waste many words

Keep in mind, that to be part of the character’s Dialog Signature, these must happen often, not just in a single instance.

If you keep this in front of you when writing dialog, Ron will be consistent and easily distinguished. Readers will come to know his speech patterns. If you follow this procedure for all major characters, readers will begin to recognize the speakers and actually hear their voices.

And you will be a master at writing dialog.

After a successful career in mathematics and computer science, receiving grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA, and being listed in Who’s Who in Computer Science and Two Thousand Notable Americans, James R. Callan turned to his first love—writing.  He has had four non-fiction books published.  He now concentrates on his favorite genre, mystery/suspense/thriller. His twelfth book released in May, 2018. In addition, he speaks at conferences and gives workshops on various writing topics such as character development, dialog, audiobooks, plotting, and the mystery/suspense/thriller genre.

Website: www.jamesrcallan.com
Blog: https://www.jamesrcallan.com/blog/
Author Page: http://amzn.to/1eeykvG

Trust Your Reader (a.k.a. Stop Over Explaining)

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My younger sister is a teacher. She often gives directions, then has to repeat them, then has to explain them (as high school students aren’t necessarily known for their listening skills). Because of that, she’s gotten into the habit of repeating and overexplaining things when she talks to her family and friends. It’s not uncommon to hear something like this:

We need to leave the house by three so we don’t get stuck in rush hour traffic. Rush hour is usually between four and six, and that’s when traffic is the heaviest because everyone gets out of work at the same time. It can take twice as long to drive through rush hour, so we need to leave the house by three.

That kind of over explanation works in small doses, but even those of us who know her well have to occasionally remind her that we don’t need step-by-step instructions for everything. People who don’t know her can feel insulted by the repetitiveness (as if she thinks they aren’t smart enough to understand what she’s talking about).

What does this have to do with novel writing? Everything!

Why? Because new authors tend to overexplain and repeat everything to make sure the reader knows what’s going on. Instead of making things clear, however, the readers (like people who don’t know my sister) often feel insulted (and bored) as they reread the same information over and over again.

How do you make sure you’re not overexplaining (and insulting your reader)? Here are two ways you can trust your reader more:

  1. Don’t explain the obvious. There are a lot of ways writers do this. Some are on the smaller scale. For example, she clapped her hands—you can delete her hands because she wouldn’t clap her feet. A larger scale explanation would be something like the rush hour example. The majority of people know what rush hour is. There’s no need to explain it. The few people who don’t understand it will look it up.
  2. Don’t repeat the details. After you introduce a character with blue eyes, you don’t have to mention those details every time she shows up on the page. Another point-of-view character might notice her eye color the first time he sees her, but there’s no reason to mention them in every scene she’s in. The reader will remember. The same is true for her age, hair color, height, etc. (A couple of reminders throughout the story are fine, but mention these details too many times and the reader will start skimming.)

Start looking for and keeping track of these things (e.g. how many times do you mention your characters’ ages?) and you’ll not only tighten your writing, you’ll keep the reader engaged and wanting more.

Five Ways to Strengthen Your Novel—and Your Life! By Linda Nathan

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Whether we read a novel just to kick back and relax or to jump into an exciting adventure, we enter one or possibly more new worlds.

Fiction’s power comes from its ability to draw a reader into a world view—a set of beliefs, ideas, and attitudes about the world, ourselves, and others. It can impart both truth and deception, so as Christians, it’s vital to discern what we’re reading and, as writers, what we’re writing. Understanding and utilizing world views can help us to do both.

World views appear in themes of truth and deception, love and hate, good and evil, unity and brokenness, and more. The realities of those world views play out through plots, characters, action, dialogue, atmosphere, and other fictional elements.

A biblical world view discerns good from evil, truth from falsehood. The Apostle Paul tells us to take every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), and Romans 12:2 exhorts us to mature in discernment through God’s Word. Comparing world views that we encounter with the Bible, helps us to do this.

What worlds entice you when you read? And what worlds do you create for your readers?

Following are four influential world view areas operating in our culture today. Can you spot their spiritual realities in fictional landscapes? Do they shape any world views you encounter or want to write about? Studying world views will help you understand how they conflict, combine and communicate their message to others.

  • Biblical. The Word of God is the foundation of a Christian world view (Heb. 4:12).
  • New Age/mystical. Sees the world as magical with no Creator God. Emphasizes imagination, feeling, and intuition. Looks “within” for truth though mysticism, “spirit guides,” psychedelic drugs, etc.
  • Psychological. Seeks transformation via therapy, self-analysis, pop psychology, and self-help and behavioral change methods. Intersects with New Age/mystical.
  • Secular/materialist/atheistic. Relies upon worldly techniques and materialistic philosophies.

Want to create a riveting story? Utilize world views to increase conflict, reveal character, and create atmosphere. Here’s an example. Can you spot the world views operating in this vignette?

Judy McGrath stirred her coffee and stared out the window at the veil of fog shrouding the garden. She shivered. It reminded her of the veil she felt over her marriage—a cold, distant, and alien fog. Once again, John was off managing the high-tech company he loved—and once again she was alone.

Alone.
And childless.

“Children are counterproductive to a green Earth,” he’d insisted. “Our planet’s already overpopulated.”

“But John, don’t you want family?” she’d protested.

“Nonsense. We have to separate human sexuality from human reproduction or earth will be doomed.” He’d hurried away, scowling.

Judy wiped a tear and stirred her coffee, then wiped away another tear. Finally, she gave up and reached for the box of tissues.

The ability to identify world views can sharpen our awareness of the world around us, enrich our stories, and protect us and our readers from deception. To identify world views as you read and write fiction, ask yourself:

  • What philosophies, attitudes, and beliefs underlie and shape the plot, imagery, characterization, and dialogue?
  • How do these world views interact, conflict, combine, and communicate with each other?
  • How do they line up with the Bible?

In summary, learning about world views can help us to:

  1. Discern what we’re reading and, as writers, what we’re writing;
  2. Mature in discernment as we are transformed by God’s Word;
  3. Understand how they conflict, combine, and communicate among themselves;
  4. Create a riveting story through conflict, character change, and atmosphere; and
  5. Sharpen our awareness of the world around us, enrich our reading and writing, and protect us and our readers from deception.

* * *

We’ve taken on the challenge of writing about radically conflicting world views in our new thriller, The Glittering Web, coming this April 22 through Redemption Press.

Based on the true story of our rescue by Jesus Christ, our fast-paced novel plunges the reader into deep struggles involved with escaping Satan’s kingdom and clearly distinguishes the conflict between the kingdoms of light and of darkness.

Linda Nathan has 27 years of experience as a professional freelance writer, editor, and consultant for authors and institutions through her business, Logos Word Designs, LLC. She is a staff freelance editor with Redemption Press and a gold member of the Christian Editor Connection. Linda has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Oregon and master’s level work, as well as 10 years of experience in the legal field. She has helped numerous authors attain publication and in several instances achieve industry awards.

The book:
http://www.theglitteringweb.com
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authors@theglitteringweb.com

Logos Word Designs, LLC
http://www.logosword.com
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editor@logosword.com

ABOUT ME

Editor. Teacher. Novelist.
A passionate lover of fiction, Karin doesn't just write novels, she helps others write their best stories! A certified substantive editor with the Christian Editor Connection, her goal is to help authors to put her out of business by equipping them with the tools they need to become better writers.

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