I’ve mentioned before that I don’t review books I don’t like. So let’s talk about why some books are not on my review list: first-draft issues that occasionally find their way into published works. For me as an author, the easiest part of writing is inadvertently slipping a clumsy bit of phrasing into my narrative, having an action scene go hilariously (and impossibly) wrong.
I don’t usually notice the awkwardness until my editor points it out.
One: passive phrasing. I’ve said this before, but in real life, people don’t “begin” to pick up that hammer. They don’t “start” to walk away.
- They reach for the hammer or take it from the toolbox.
- They walk
We’re thinking and writing the story as it falls from our heads. Because we get into storytelling mode, the dog begins to bark, and the neighbors start to complain. In real life, the dog barks, and the neighbors complain.
Two: not showing a character’s emotions. When laying down the first draft, it’s easy to “tell” the story instead of showing it: “Hugo was mad.” That is concise, but it tells us nothing about Hugo.
Then there is the opposite extreme, showing far too much. I once read a 250-word description of a purple velvet suit of dubious origin. I had trouble not going to sleep. I could see what the author was trying to say, but the host’s suit was the least of the travesties in that train wreck of a novel.
They could have written the entire 250-word encounter this way: Vincent wore a suit of purple velvet, threadbare, and looking as if it came from his grandfather’s closet. A good investment for the author would have been to hire a professional editor.
I don’t care for minute details describing facial expressions: “Marge’s eyebrows drew together, her lips turned down, and her cheeks popped a dimple. Hate glared from her eyes.”
Not a good visualization.
Three: wimpy word choices. Some authors swamp us with an avalanche of prettily written descriptors: “-ly” words. In the 18th and 19th centuries, “ly” words in literature were often rife, a natural and expected component of narrative flow.
But times have changed. A few adverbs and adjectives ending in “ly” are unavoidable, but as authors grow in the craft of writing for modern readers, they begin to find alternate words that sound more forceful: power words.
Power words can be found beginning with every letter of the alphabet and usually don’t end in “ly.” In English, words that begin with consonants convey strength. What are some “B” words that convey a hint of danger, but aren’t “telling” words?
- Backlash
- Blinded
- Blood
- Blunder
When you incorporate any of the above “B” words into your prose, you post a road sign for the reader, a notice that “ahead lies danger.” Mingle them with other power words, and you have an air of danger.
New writers sometimes want to show their characters as human. They have them natter on about nothing: “Remember when….” If the memory doesn’t pertain to the story or explain something about a character that has been a mystery, it doesn’t advance the plot. Rather than showing them as human, it pads the word count, stalls the momentum, and the reader stops reading.
Four: use of clichés. Speaking as a reader, no matter how perfect it is, please don’t use the word alabaster to describe a white woman’s skin. Don’t describe a black woman’s skin as chocolate. Make an effort to find a different way to describe her appearance. It’s an easy word that says smooth and pale, or smooth and dark.
Overused words and phrases become clichés.
Most readers will tell you that it’s not usually necessary to describe a character’s skin other than with broad generalizations. This is because you want the reader to imagine them for themselves, and we all have different ideas of beauty.
Clichés and catchphrases will appear in the first drafts of our work, but they are signposts for the second draft. They tell us to spend some time finding a creative way to show a person or an event.
Five: events that occur for no reason and take the story nowhere. One of my favorite sci-fi series is “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series of books written by the late Douglas Adams. The storylines across all the books have a random feel, but they are anything but random.
The books detail the adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless Englishman traveling the galaxy in his pajamas. He and his friend are transported off the earth just in time to miss the destruction of the planet by the Vogons, a race of unpleasant and bureaucratic aliens, to make way for an intergalactic bypass.
Douglas Adams understood that there must be a reason for the protagonist to leave his home wearing his pajamas and a robe. He used that opportunity to show the cozy, comfortable environment Arthur was about to be thrust out of.
Adams understood how to write a compelling story. First, he showed us Arthur in his happy home, and then his protagonist had to be quickly yanked out there and placed on that Vogon Constructor Ship. Every event in Arthur’s story exists for a reason.
Six: Inadequate research presented as fact. Don’t say you’re writing real science if you are skimping on research. Yes, true research is time-consuming. Writing true history, writing medical dramas, and using police and military procedures involves effort. You must glean research from more sources than Wikipedia and old CSI episodes.
If you are writing historical fiction, you must know the true history of your subject. Make notes as you read each, noting the book title, the author, and the page number where you found the info, as you may need to know those things later. You can write fiction around it, but major historical events have well-known timelines. It’s work to learn the facts, but this is a job where you can’t skimp.
A research side note: Storyboards are your friend.
If you are writing speculative fiction, fantasy, or even a contemporary novel set in your town, you will accumulate background information in your world-building process. You will want to keep it organized, and this is where the style sheet or storyboard comes in handy.
What the style sheet/storyboard should cover:
- All names, created or not: Aeos, Aeolyn, Beryl, Carl, Edwin, etc.
- Real and created animal names: alligator, stinkbear, thunder-cow, waterdemon
- Created words that are hyphenated: fire-mage, thunder-cow
- All place names, real or created: Seattle, Chicago, Ragat, Wister, Sevya, Arlen, Neveyah
- Any maps, calendars, and research notes you have accumulated.
See my post, Designing the Story,” for more on how to make a storyboard or style sheet.
Keep your notes/stylesheet in a clearly labeled file, and back them up on a thumb drive or file them in the cloud via Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Docs. I use and work out of a file-saving service, so my files won’t be lost no matter what happens to my computer.
Turning those notes into your story is an integral part of the writing process.
Seven: plagiarism. This is most important: never copy lines from another person’s work and pass them off as your own. That is plagiarism, and you never want to be accused of that. If you must quote someone verbatim in your book and the work is not in the public domain, contact their publisher and get their legal permission to do so, and credit them by using proper footnotes. If you do not receive written consent, do not use their work.
Keep this written permission on file with any other legal papers that pertain to that book. An excellent article on this can be found here: Cite Unseen: 3 Bits for a Better Bibliography.
So, there they are, a few random thoughts on the reason some published novels don’t resonate with me, no matter how affordably they are priced.
Each chapter is comprised of one or more scenes. These scenes have an arc to them: action and reaction. These arcs of action and reaction begin at point A and end at point B. Each launching point will land on a slightly higher point of the story arc.
We see Avril taunting Sallah for her matronly body and move out again to see Avril tying a cord to Sallah’s crushed foot and forcing her to make the navigational calculations for Avril’s escape. We move close up and hear the interaction, Sallah pretending to do as Avril asks but really setting her enemy’s doom in action. The camera moves to the wide view again, and we hear the interaction with her frantic husband on the ground. We are caught up in her determination to seize this only chance, using her dying breaths to get the information about the thread spores to the scientists on the ground.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 