10 MISTAKES WRITERS DON'T SEE (BUT CAN EASILY FIX WHEN THEY DO)
Like many editorial consultants, I've been concerned about the amount
of time I've been spending on easy fixes that the author shouldn't
have to pay for.
Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or
why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic. But most
of the time the author either missed that day's grammar lesson in
elementary school or is too close to the manuscript to make
corrections before I see it.
So the following is a list I'll be referring to people *before* they
submit anything in writing to anybody (me, agent, publisher, your
mom, your boss). From email messages and front-page news in the New
York Times to published books and magazine articles, the 10 ouchies
listed here crop up everywhere. They're so pernicious that even
respected Internet columnists are not immune.
The list also could be called, "10 COMMON PROBLEMS THAT DISMISS YOU
AS AN AMATEUR," because these mistakes are obvious to literary agents
and editors, who may start wording their decline letter by page 5.
What a tragedy that would be.
So here we go:
REPEATS
Just about every writer unconsciously leans on a "crutch" word.
Hillary Clinton's repeated word is "eager" (can you believe it? the
committee that wrote "Living History" should be ashamed).
Cosmopolitan magazine editor Kate White uses "quickly" over a dozen
times in "A Body To Die For." Jack Kerouac's crutch word in "On the
Road" is "sad," sometimes doubly so - "sad, sad." Ann Packer's in
"The Dive from Clausen's Pier" is "weird."
Crutch words are usually unremarkable. That's why they slip under
editorial radar - they're not even worth repeating, but there you
have it, pop, pop, pop, up they come. Readers, however, notice them,
get irked by them and are eventually distracted by them, and down
goes your book, never to be opened again.
But even if the word is unusual, and even if you use it differently
when you repeat it, don't: Set a higher standard for yourself even if
readers won't notice. In Jennifer Egan's "Look at me," the core word
- a good word, but because it's good, you get *one* per book -is
"abraded." Here's the problem:
"Victoria's blue gaze abraded me with the texture of ground glass." page 202
"...(metal trucks abrading the concrete)..." page 217
"...he relished the abrasion of her skepticism..." page 256
"...since his abrasion with Z ..." page 272
The same goes for repeats of several words together - a phrase or
sentence that may seem fresh at first, but, restated many times,
draws attention from the author's strengths. Sheldon Siegel nearly
bludgeons us in his otherwise witty and articulate courtroom
thriller, "Final Verdict" with a sentence construction that's
repeated throughout the book:
"His tone oozes self-righteousness when he says..." page 188
"His voice is barely audible when he says..." page 193
"His tone is unapologetic when he says..." page 199
"Rosie keeps her tone even when she says..." page 200
"His tone is even when he says..." page 205
"I switch to my lawyer voice when I say ..." page 211
"He sounds like Grace when he says..." page 211
What a tragedy. I'm not saying all forms of this sentence should be
lopped off. Lawyers find their rhythm in the courtroom by phrasing
questions in the same or similar way. It's just that you can't do it
too often on the page. After the third or fourth or 16th time,
readers exclaim silently, "Where was the editor who shoulda caught
this?" or "What was the author thinking?"
So if you are the author, don't wait for the agent or house or even
editorial consultant to catch this stuff *for* you. Attune your eye
now. Vow to yourself, NO REPEATS.
And by the way, even deliberate repeats should always be questioned:
"Here are the documents." says one character. "If these are the
documents, I'll oppose you," says another. A repeat like that just
keeps us on the surface. Figure out a different word; or rewrite the
exchange. Repeats rarely allow you to probe deeper.
FLAT WRITING
"He wanted to know but couldn't understand what she had to say, so he
waited until she was ready to tell him before asking what she meant."
Something is conveyed in this sentence, but who cares? The writing is
so flat, it just dies on the page. You can't fix it with a few
replacement words - you have to give it depth, texture, character.
Here's another:
"Bob looked at the clock and wondered if he would have time to stop
for gas before driving to school to pick up his son after band
practice." True, this could be important - his wife might have hired
a private investigator to document Bob's inability to pick up his son
on time - and it could be that making the sentence bland invests it
with more tension. (This is the editorial consultant giving you the
benefit of the doubt.) Most of the time, though, a sentence like this
acts as filler. It gets us from A to B, all right, but not if we go
to the kitchen to make a sandwich and find something else to read
when we sit down.
Flat writing is a sign that you've lost interest or are intimidated
by your own narrative. It shows that you're veering toward
mediocrity, that your brain is fatigued, that you've lost your
inspiration. So use it as a lesson. When you see flat writing on the
page, it's time to rethink, refuel and rewrite.
EMPTY ADVERBS
Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly,
continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically,
incredibly, hopefully, finally - these and others are words that
promise emphasis, but too often they do the reverse. They suck the
meaning out of every sentence.
I defer to People Magazine for larding its articles with empty
adverbs. A recent issue refers to an "incredibly popular,
groundbreakingly racy sitcom." That's tough to say even when your
lips aren't moving.
In "Still Life with Crows," Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
describe a mysterious row of corn in the middle of a field: "It was,
in fact, the only row that actually opened onto the creek." Here are
two attempts at emphasis ("in fact," "actually"), but they just junk
up the sentence. Remove them both and the word "only" carries the
burden of the sentence with efficiency and precision.
(When in doubt, try this mantra: Precise and spare; precise and
spare; precise and spare.)
In dialogue, empty adverbs may sound appropriate, even authentic, but
that's because they've creeped into American conversation in a trendy
way. If you're not watchful, they'll make your characters sound
wordy, infantile and dated.
In Julia Glass's "Three Junes," a character named Stavros is a
forthright and matter-of-fact guy who talks to his lover without
pretense or affectation. But when he mentions an offbeat tourist
souvenir, he says, "It's absolutely wild. I love it." Now he sounds
fey, spoiled, superficial.. (Granted, "wild" nearly does him in; but
"absolutely" is the killer.)
The word "actually" seems to emerge most frequently, I find. Ann
Packer's narrator recalls running in the rain with her boyfriend,
"his hand clasping mine as if he could actually make me go fast."
Delete "actually" and the sentence is more powerful without it.
The same holds true when the protagonist named Miles hears some
information in "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo. "Actually, Miles had
no doubt of it," we're told. Well, if he had no doubt, remove
"actually" - it's cleaner, clearer that way. "Actually" mushes up
sentence after sentence; it gets in the way every time. I now think
it should *never* be used.
Another problem with empty adverbs: You can't just stick them at the
beginning of a sentence to introduce a general idea or wishful
thinking, as in "Hopefully, the clock will run out." Adverbs have to
modify a verb or other adverb, and in this sentence, "run out" ain't
it.
Look at this hilarious clunker from "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown:
"Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was
clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino."
Ack, "almost inconceivably" - that's like being a little bit
infertile! Hopefully, that "enormous albino" will ironically go back
to actually flogging himself while incredibly saying his prayers
continually.
PHONY DIALOGUE
Be careful of using dialogue to advance the plot. Readers can tell
when characters talk about things they already know, or when the
speakers appear to be having a conversation for our benefit. You
never want one character to imply or say to the other, "Tell me
again, Bruce: What are we doing next?"
Avoid words that are fashionable in conversation. Ann Packer's
characters are so trendy the reader recoils. " 'What's up with that?'
I said. 'Is this a thing [love affair]?' " "We both smiled. " 'What
is it with him?' I said. 'I mean, really.' " Her book is only a few
years old, and already it's dated.
Dialogue offers glimpses into character the author can't provide
through description. Hidden wit, thoughtful observations, a shy
revelation, a charming aside all come out in dialogue, so the
characters *show* us what the author can't *tell* us. But if dialogue
helps the author distinguish each character, it also nails the
culprit who's promoting a hidden agenda by speaking out of character.
An unfortunate pattern the dialogue in "Three Junes, by the way, is
that all the male characters begin to sound like the author's version
of Noel Coward - fey, acerbic, witty, superior, puckish, diffident.
Pretty soon the credibility of the entire novel is shot. You owe it
to each character's unique nature to make every one of them an
original.
Now don't tell me that because Julia Glass won the National Book
Award, you can get away with lack of credibility in dialogue. Setting
your own high standards and sticking to them - being proud of
*having* them - is the mark of a pro. Be one, write like one, and
don't cheat.
NO-GOOD SUFFIXES
Don't take a perfectly good word and give it a new backside so it
functions as something else. The New York Times does this all the
time. Instead of saying, "as a director, she is meticulous," the
reviewer will write, "as a director, she is known for her
meticulousness." Until she is known for her obtuseness.
The "ness" words cause the eye to stumble, come back, reread:
Mindlessness, characterlessness, courageousness, statuesqueness,
preciousness - you get the idea. You might as well pour marbles into
your readers' mouths. Not all "ness" words are bad - goodness, no -
but they are all suspect.
The "ize" words are no better - finalize, conceptualize, fantasize,
categorize. The "ize" hooks itself onto words as a short-cut but
stays there like a parasite. Cops now say to each other about
witnesses they've interrogated, "Did you statementize him?" Some
shortcut. Not all "ize" words are bad, either, but they do have the
ring of the vulgate to them - "he was brutalized by his father,"
"she finalized her report." Just try to use them rarely.
Adding "ly" to "ing" words has a little history to it. Remember the
old Tom Swifties? "I hate that incision," the surgeon said cuttingly.
"I got first prize!" the boy said winningly. But the point to a good
Tom Swiftie is to make a punchline out of the last adverb. If you do
that in your book, the reader is unnecessarily distracted. Serious
writing suffers from such antics.
Some "ingly" words do have their place. I can accept "swimmingly,"
"annoyingly," "surprisingly" as descriptive if overlong "ingly"
words. But not "startlingly," "harrowingly" or "angeringly,"
"careeningly" - all hell to pronounce, even in silence, like the
"groundbreakingly" used by People magazine above. Try to use all
"ingly" words (can't help it) sparingly.
THE 'TO BE' WORDS:
Once your eye is attuned to the frequent use of the "to be" words -
"am," "is," "are," "was," "were," "be," "being," "been" and others -
you'll be appalled at how quickly they flatten prose and slow your
pace to a crawl.
The "to be" words represent the existence of things - "I am here. You
are there." Think of Hamlet's query, "to be, or not to be." To exist
is not to act, so the "to be" words pretty much just there sit on the
page. "I am the maid." "It was cold." "You were away."
I blame mystery writers for turning the "to be" words into a trend:
Look how much burden is placed on the word "was" in this sentence:
"Around the corner, behind the stove, under the linoleum, was the
gun." All the suspense of finding the gun dissipates. The "to be"
word is not fair to the gun, which gets lost in a sea of prepositions.
Sometimes, "to be" words do earn a place in writing: "In a frenzy by
now, he pushed the stove away from the wall and ripped up he
linoleum. Cold metal glinted from under the floorboards. He peered
closer. Sure enough, it was the gun." Okay, I'm lousy at this, but
you get the point: Don't squander the "to be" words - save them for
special moments.
Not so long ago "it was" *defined* emphasis. Even now, if you want to
say, "It was Margaret who found the gun," meaning nobody else but
Margaret, fine. But watch out - "it was" can be habitual: "It was
Jack who joined the Million Man March. It was Bob who said he would
go, too. But it was Bill who went with them." Flat, flat, flat.
Try also to reserve the use of "there was" or "there is" for special
occasions. If used to often, this crutch also bogs down sentence
after sentence. "He couldn't believe there was furniture in the room.
There was an open dresser drawer. There was a sock on the bed. There
was a stack of laundry in the corner. There was a handkerchief on the
floor...." By this time, we're dozing off, and you haven't even
gotten to the kitchen
One finds the dreaded "there was/is" in jacket copy all the time.
"Smith's book offers a range of lively characters: There is Jim, the
puzzle-loving dad. There is Winky, the mom who sits on the 9th Court
of Appeals. There is Barbie, brain surgeon to the stars...."
Attune your eye to the "to be" words and you'll see them everywhere.
When in doubt, replace them with active, vivid, engaging verbs.
Muscle up that prose.
LISTS
"She was entranced by the roses, hyacinths, impatiens, mums,
carnations, pansies, irises, peonies, hollyhocks, daylillies, morning
glories, larkspur..." Well, she may be entranced, but our eyes are
glazing over.
If you're going to describe a number of items, jack up the visuals.
Lay out the the scene as the eye sees it, with emphasis and emotion
in unlikely places. When you list the items as though we're checking
them off with a clipboard, the internal eye will shut.
It doesn't matter what you list - nouns, adjectives, verbs - the
result is always static. "He drove, he sighed, he swallowed, he
yawned in impatience." So do we. Dunk the whole thing. Rethink and
rewrite. If you've got many ingredients and we aren't transported,
you've got a list.
SHOW, DON'T TELL
If you say, "she was stunning and powerful," you're *telling* us. But
if you say, "I was stunned by her elegant carriage as she strode past
the jury - shoulders erect, elbows back, her eyes wide and watchful,"
you're *showing* us. The moment we can visualize the picture you're
trying to paint, you're showing us, not telling us what we *should*
see..
Handsome, attractive, momentous, embarrassing, fabulous, powerful,
hilarious, stupid, fascinating are all words that "tell" us in an
arbitrary way what to think. They don't reveal, don't open up, don't
describe in specifics what is unique to the person or event
described. Often they begin with cliches.
Here is Gail Sheehy's depiction of a former "surfer girl" from the
New Jersey shore in "Middletown, America":
"This was a tall blond tomboy who grew up with all guy friends. A
natural beauty who still had age on her side, being thirty; she
didn't give a thought to taming her flyaway hair or painting makeup
on her smooth Swedish skin."
Here I *think* I know what Sheehy means, but I'm not sure. Don't let
the reader make such assumptions. You're the author; it's your charge
to show us what you mean with authentic detail. Don't pretend the job
is accomplished by cliches such as "smooth Swedish skin," "flyaway
hair," "tall blond tomboy," "the surfer girl" - how smooth? how tall?
how blond?
Or try this from Faye Kellerman in "Street Dreams": "[Louise's]
features were regular, and once she had been pretty. Now she was
handsome in her black skirt, suit, and crisp, white blouse."
Well, that's it for Louise, poor thing. Can you see the character in
front of you? A previous sentence tells us that Louise has "blunt-cut
hair" framing an "oval face," which helps, but not much - millions
of women have a face like that. What makes Louise distinctive? Again,
we may think we know what Kellerman means by "pretty" and "handsome"
(good luck), but the inexcusable word here is "regular," as in "her
features were regular." What *are* "regular" features?
The difference between telling and showing usually boils down to the
physical senses. Visual, aural aromatic words take us out of our skin
and place us in the scene you've created. In conventional narrative
it's fine to use a "to be" word to talk us into the distinctive word,
such as "wandered" in this brief, easily imagined sentence by John
Steinbeck in "East of Eden." "His eyes were very blue, and when he
was tired, one of them wandered outward a little." We don't care if
he is "handsome" or "regular."
Granted, context is everything, as writing experts say, and certainly
that's true of the sweltering West African heat in Graham Greene's
"The Heart of the Matter": "Her face had the ivory tinge of atabrine;
her hair which had once been the color of bottled honey was dark and
stringy with sweat." Except for "atabrine" (a medicine for malaria),
the words aren't all that distinctive, but they quietly do the job -
they don't tell us; they show us.
Commercial novels sometimes abound with the most revealing examples
of this problem. The boss in Linda Lael Miller's "Don't Look Now" is
"drop-dead gorgeous"; a former boyfriend is "seriously fine to look
at: 35, half Irish and half Hispanic, his hair almost black, his eyes
brown." A friend, Betsy, is "a gorgeous, leggy blonde, thin as a
model." Careful of that word "gorgeous" - used too many times, it
might lose its meaning.
AWKWARD PHRASING
"Mrs. Fletcher's face pinkened slightly." Whoa. This is an author
trying too hard. "I sat down and ran a finger up the bottom of his
foot, and he startled so dramatically .... " Egad, "he startled"? You
mean "he started"?
Awkward phrasing makes the reader stop in the midst of reading and
ponder the meaning of a word or phrase. This you never want as an
author. A rule of thumb - always give your work a little percolatin'
time before you come back to it. Never write right up to deadline.
Return to it with fresh eyes. You'll spot those overworked tangles of
prose and know exactly how to fix them.
COMMAS
Compound sentences, most modifying clauses and many phrases *require*
commas. You may find it necessary to break the rules from time to
time, but you can't delete commas just because you don't like the
pause they bring to a sentence or just because you want to add
tension.
"Bob ran up the stairs and looking down he realized his shoelace was
untied but he couldn't stop because they were after him so he decided
to get to the roof where he'd retie it." This is what happens when an
author believes that omitting commas can make the narrative sound
breathless and racy. Instead it sounds the reverse - it's heavy and
garbled.
The Graham Greene quote above is dying for commas, which I'll insert
here: "Her face had the ivory tinge of atabrine; her hair, which had
once been the color of bottled honey, was dark and stringy with
sweat." This makes the sentence accessible to the reader, an image
one needs to slow down and absorb.
Entire books have been written about punctuation. Get one. "The
Chicago Manual of Style" shows why punctuation is necessary in
specific instances. If you don't know what the rules are for, your
writing will show it.
The point to the List above is that even the best writers make these
mistakes, but you can't afford to. The way manuscripts are thrown
into the Rejection pile on the basis of early mistakes is a crime.
Don't be a victim.
-----
LETTERS
Dear Holt Uncensored
This may have already been dealt with by you, or others, but is it
true that the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST is based not on book
sales but on book orders?
Obviously, if this is so, when Barnes & Noble (for example) sends an
order for 50,000 copies of THE 800-POUND GORILLA DIET BOOK, that
might just put the book at the top of one of the NYTBL categories.
This, of course, turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy of success.
People buy the book like crazy because the NYT-lite crowd seems to be
reporting its really-big sales.
Please confirm, deny, investigate, or concede you won't touch the
topic with a 10 foot pica stick.
David Bowman
Holt responds: I think we have to believe the fine print at the
bottom of the New York Times bestseller list page, which states that
"rankings reflect sales ...at almost 4,000 bookstores plus
wholesalers serving 50,000 other retailers..." But we can't leave it
at that. It's hard to figure where all these "4,000 bookstores" might
be, unless that number includes every branch of every chain store, in
which case you're right: If Barnes & Noble orders 50,000 of some
gimmicky frontlist title, it's going to hype the book in all its
branches, and voila! That title will probably get reported to the
NYTBR. I don't think the Times Bestseller List ever recovered from
the boycott on reporting that many independent booksellers conducted
some years ago when the Times declared Barnes & Noble as its
exclusive online bookstore. Many booksellers resumed reporting when
that relationship ended, but the NYTBR Best Seller List still looks
chain-driven to me - it's dull, predictable, static, commercial and a
bore (pardon *my* list).
Dear Holt Uncensored:
Thanks for including the Publishers Marketplace interview in your
last issue. Your interview showcased the merits of Manuscript
Express and clearly related its import to the current publishing
clime. I must quibble, however, with the idea that telling an author
he may not up to snuff is a bad idea. The market is inundated with
aspiring and would-be novelists who, for whatever reason, believe
they can write, but have no real notion about what writing actually
entails.
From their desks, they send out their unedited manuscripts, not
understanding just how many other people there are out there with the
same idea, not cognizant of slush piles and an agent or editor's lack
of time, and completely unaware of the importance of revision. If a
writer expects to make it, then she must inure herself against
boiler-plate rejection, while realizing that someone who has read and
reviewed books for several years, someone who presents their opinions
with informed and cogent arguments, might have some valid points when
a manuscript, quite frankly, blows. We're not talking snuff jobs
along the lines of Laura Miller's recent review of Chuck Palahniuk's
"Diary" .... Miller's vitriol, which was unleashed with a furor
above and beyond last year's infamous Dale Peck piece, was quite a
transformation for anyone who had followed Miller's past. Her
previous reviews had been based on reason. The Palahniuk review was
steeped in bankrupt logic which didn't even attempt to understand
what Palahniuk was trying to accomplish. It was the kind of
negativity that served no purpose.
It really is a matter of finding the right people, the people who
still care about books and the merits of writing, the people still
willing to dance around the flames, and the people unafraid of
dispensing honest wisdom within a coat of encouragement. If a
manuscript service can do this, and if these services crop up as
rampantly as you suggest, then it would certainly be a fascinating
development for the publishing industry. And in its own way, it
would represent one more side effect of writers picking up the tab.
But it's damaging to the writer and books in general to encourage
painfully inept manuscripts. And it's counterproductive for any
writer to take these arguments so personally. Getting published
involves chronic rejection. It does not involve a New Age seminar in
which every member is given a complimentary Thomas A. Harris book.
It's more akin to getting a jersey that reads, "I labored over this
manuscript and all I got was a bunch of rejection letters and this
crummy T-shirt," but, despite this, trying again all the same.
Writing and getting published is not some casual hobby to be taken up
like cross-stitching (unless, of course, you're Traci Lords or
Madonna, who get published on name value alone). If a writer hopes
to succeed, then she must adapt herself to the environment. She must
listen to what an experienced editor has to say and weigh the
valuable wisdom ....
It's a tough world out there. And if any writer expects to survive,
then they need to understand that sometimes the *helpful* critique is
one that suggests that they should take up another hobby or, at the
very least, seriously shine their wares. You wouldn't expect anyone
to bicycle like Lance Armstrong by just hopping onto a Schwinn.
Likewise, you wouldn't expect anyone to produce a publishable novel
simply by hopping onto a typewriter.
Ed
Holt responds: I can't tell you how many times I've decided in the
early pages of a manuscript that the author does not have a future as
a published writer, only to see the book take off like a shot on,
say, page 206. More commonly: flashes of briliance will pop up just
enough to show the writer has considerable talent, but the book
itself never quite nears publishability. The intriguing lesson for me
has been that it's really none of my business whether this author or
that author has talent. The manuscript is what I'm paid to analyze -
beyond that, worlds of possibility exist that I can't imagine.
Holt Uncensored provides this forum for the free and uncensored exchange of
thoughts and ideas from writers of all callings. The opinions expressed
here are not necessarily those of Pat Holt or the Northern California
Independent Booksellers Association.
"Holt Uncensored" is an online column by Pat Holt
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