Intro:

--Do you want to produce a Ford or Chevy book … or a Rolls Royce?

--Do you want to produce a Mustang or a Jaguar (Thriller)?

--Turn your jalopy into a high-end vehicle by making some simple changes in your manuscript.

--writing advice can conflict. I’m still conflicted in some areas. Different publishers use different reference sources and have their own ideas. Advice: be flexible and ready to comply (my “too” experience with D. K. Publishing).

--No hardcore grammar (As John Merrick, the Elephant Man, said, “I am not a grammarian”… a few grammatical points. We all have to contend with it on our own.

--Two purposes for today’s session:

---mostly manuscript word flow with good, clean writing

---partly manuscript appearance

--Books I have used:

---The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

----much touted (for decades), once slammed (very recently)

----parts useful, but incomplete

---Edit Yourself by Bruce Ross-Larson

----for manuscript tightening. Select the phrases you best like to abuse and remove them through search and replace.

---Proofreading Plain and Simple by Debra Hart May

----good for learning the proofreader’s mark

---The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

----good overall book for writing your entire novel

Script tightening rules: Who are they for?

--“They are not for me!” says R. K. Rowling. Established authors can break the rules (because they have a following already).

--for the unknown, non-established writer

--Sandra Bullock in Speed as opposed to Miss Congeniality

--the truth as I suspect it … readers are not nearly as discriminatory as agents and editors.

Phrase tightening

--avoid indirect objects. EG: ‘He said to her.’ Let ‘to her’ be understood. ‘He said.’

--word choice [Economy of Words help sheet]

Active voice

-- Passive verbs

---Was Replacement help sheet

--weak verb alternatives [Action Descriptors help sheet. Do Look]

--MS Word grammar checker has a passive voice indicator.

--[Action Descriptors help sheet]

Show don’t tell

--In lieu of telling us how the characters feel … show us.

--“ly” adverbs are big-time tellers. Show us through actions, expressions, or dialogue.

---Instead of doing this: “You should have thought things out,” John said harshly. Let the dialogue illustrate harshness: “What a stupid thing to do!” John said.

---Instead of telling us about how John feels show the body language: John was angry inside. “It just isn’t fair,” he said. Show us how he feels. John balled his fists and squinted. “It just isn’t fair,” he said.

Bad/useless words [Edit Yourself book]

--all: such as in … All the people rose and mutinied. Use instead: The people rose and mutinied.

--really: such as in … It’s really very big. Use instead: It’s big.

--both: Redundant to say, “They both…” just say “They …”

--back: such as in … She drove back to the Baileys. Use instead: She drove to the Baileys.

--only: such as in … His uncle only smiled. Use instead: His uncle smiled.

--up: such as in … Gwen climbed up the tree. Use instead: Gwen climbed the tree.

--just: such as in … He was just trying to defend himself. Say instead, ‘He tried to defend himself.’

--very: see really.

--Suddenly (when starting a sentence).

--Finally (when starting a sentence).

--Then or Just then (when starting a sentence).

Tag limitation

--Don’t mention a non-speaker first in a paragraph when another character will speak.

---Bad EG: Vance nodded happily until Michelle had to butt in. “That was interesting, but these are nothing like the Egyptian pyramids.” Solution? Give … Vance nodded (w/o happily) a separate line. On a new line, don’t tell us Michelle butted in … just have her do it.

--Identify the speaker prior to the 40^th printed character in every line.

--Methods of identifying speakers without using tags.

---With a two-person scene, have one character use the other’s name.

---Have the character speaking make a gesture or movement.

---use a unique phrase the character always says. (Holy guacamole, Yuppers)

--Limit your tags to a precious few. [Limiting Your Tags help sheet]

Avoid stating the obvious.

--New writers state what will happen followed by it happening.

---Bad EG: Jake felt like running off. He turned to Mila, glared at her, and ran away. The fix: Jake turned to Mila, glared at her, and ran away.

--New writers state what a character will say, and then has the character say it.

---Bad EG: Michelle looked away. “Those are gross. It doesn’t look like an advanced culture to me.”

---Renata frowned at her and changed the subject, “As I was saying, the sloping foreheads were not natural.”

---The fix: Renata frowned. “As I was saying, the sloping foreheads were not natural.”

“I” overuse in first person.

--Here’s the problem … Everything is written from the “I” point of view: narrative, thoughts, and dialogue. And I say …

--If Your I’s Offend Thee, Then Pluck Them Out help sheet.

Don’t use hackneyed or clichéd phrases.

--Bad EG’s:

---Knock your socks off!

---Cool as a cucumber.

---Keeping up with the Jonses.

---Smiled in spite of him/herself.

--Rewrite clichés

---exaggerate for comic effect.

----EG: She turned twenty-seven shades and red.

---misquote them for humorous effect.

----EG: Mother is a necessary invention or Half of one, six-dozen of the other.

---combine elements of two into one for comic effect.

----EG: A fool and his money … is a penny saved.

---paraphrase it leaving most of it unsaid.

----EG: It looks like a case of pots and kettle to me.

Pesky punctuation

--Exclamation point abuse

---Use sparingly.

---NEVER!!!! use more than one after a word.

--Use commas, colons, semi-colons sparingly.

--M-dash use.

---as a break in narrative. ‘Images flashed through her mind—mostly sad images.’

---as an indicator of a dialogue interruption.

----Normally I stay longer, but—”

“I know,” my father said

--Ellipses.

---as a break in thought during dialogue. “I just don’t … tell him I said ‘no’.”

Pacing

--No deep thinking in intense plot situations.

--Short spurt thinking only.

Prepositional phrases

--no more than two in a row.

---Bad overkill EG: I dropped the key in the jar by the Buddha statue on the table in front of the fireplace.

Modifiers

--one per noun usually.

--comma use.

---if an adjective modifies the following adjective, use a comma.

---if the first adjective of two in a row modifies the noun, don’t use comma.

Vary actions

--don’t overuse smiling, grinning, headshaking, nodding, etc.

Redundant phrases

--avoid phrases like, “baby puppies”.

--avoid “they both” and “they all”. ‘They’ is ALL you need.

---Bad EG: “They both ran away.” Use … “The girls ran away.”

---Bad EG 2: “They all ran away.” Use … “They ran away.”

--avoid side-by-side identical words like “had had” and the dreaded “not not”.

---Here’s a not not joke:

----Not not

----Who’s there?

----Bad writer.

----Bad writer who?

----I can not not tell you how bad using ‘not not’ is.

---Bad EG: “I cannot not tell her.” Try “I must tell her.”

---Bad EG 2: “She had had a bad day.” Try “She had a bad day.”

Sentence repetition starts.

--Don’t start more than two sentences in a row with the same word.

Past perfect use in flashback

--Use for only the first verb in the first paragraph.

---EG: “Betty had gone downtown after midnight.”

Long paragraphs

--Do not make paragraphs overly long.

--In a case of a long monologue, break it up with actions.

---EG: “Tough times,” my father said, crouching forward and nodding. “That is what the world is made of, and a girl of your station must jump at the chance of meeting someone like Albert Wedgeworth. Why do you think I spent all those years struggling for you to be better educated than most of your female peers?”

He leaned back, folded his arms, and drummed his fingers on his biceps. “Now, I do not have any idea what my one and only daughter thinks the world may have in store for her, but I do not want her to attain the age of one-and-twenty without a husband and run the risk of remaining a spinster all her life.”

--New paragraph for each speaker.

Character actions

--have your characters doing something while they converse to add interest.

Wordiness

--Trim phrases.

---Go over and over you writing and cut words and phrases.

---- if you think you can’t, impose a word limit (short story, novel chapter) and force yourself to meet it. You can. (The Treasure of Cayman Brac).

--use simple descriptions

-- Don’t talk to the reader during third person.

--- John thought he didn’t have any money. Oh, but if he had only searched under his mattress.

Chicago Manual of Style

--the default, definitive reference. (2 modifiers … comma required)

Dialects

--capture speech patterns, not pronunciation differences. [Elements of Editing help sheet]

--Bad EG: “Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec’ Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ‘long an’ ‘tend to my own business -- she ‘lowed she’d ‘tend to de whitewashin’.” Tom Sawyer

Contractions

--Please use them as normal

--Historical England uses less.

Sound Effects

--always italicize.

Spacing/Indenting

--One space between sentences.

--indent all paragraphs 5 characters (Internet does not).

--in an unpublished manuscript, even the first paragraphs of every chapter are indented.