Avoiding Repeated Words

Too many repetitions of the same word in a short space, such as within a single paragraph or even withing a single sentence, can be distracting to your readers and throw off the flow of your prose. Take a look at the following example:

     The wall was too tall to climb, but only just; it was short enough to seem climbable but tall enough that a fall from anywhere near the top would kill you. Raek studied the wall carefully and realized that the top of the wall was covered in a slimy-looking green moss that would make climbing impossible. But if he couldn't climb it, how would he get over the wall? The wall was between him and the chalice. He had to get past the wall.

Notice how the words "the wall" get repeated over and over again? Six times in one paragraph. Some variation of the word "climb" appears four times as well. It feels awkward and clunky.

No matter how good the word is, too much will make your readers sick. Don't be a Trunchbull.

Cleaned up, that paragraph might look like this:

     The wall was too tall to climb, but only just: it was short enough to seem scalable but tall enough that a fall from anywhere near the top would kill you. Raek studied the wall carefully and realized that the top was covered in a slimy-looking green moss that would ensure that anyone clinging to the rock would lose their grip. But if he couldn't climb the wall, how would he get over? It was between him and the chalice; he had to get past.

This version is smoother, with just three uses of "the wall" and two of "climb."  Some of the repeated words were removed by heavily re-writing the sentence, some were simply not necessary to begin with and could be removed without changing anything else, and others were replaced with synonyms ("scalable" in place of "climbable").

That final method, using synonyms, is one of the easiest ways to avoid repetition:

     The manor loomed above her, at least three stories tall. The entire edifice was wreathed so thickly with crawling ivy that it was difficult for her to tell what the manor was made out of.

In this example, we've used edifice in place of manor in one spot, to avoid using the word "manor" three times in two sentences. The variety of descriptive words helps the prose to flow more smoothly.

The same thing can be done to avoid repeating a character's name too often. Take this example from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn (emphasis added):

     "Fears?" Kelsier asked, turning to look up at Sazed. Despite Kelsier's above-average height, the Terrisman was still a good head taller. I'm not sure if he fears anything, Saze."

Notice how the author avoided repeating Sazed's name by referring to him as "the Terrisman." It is the same method of avoiding word repetition.

Some cautions:

Don't use too many synonyms

In the example above, we used edifice in place of manor. Here are a few other words we could possibly have used: building, structure, dwelling, residency, or mansion. But if you look at that example again, you'll notice that I chose to use the word "manor" twice rather than replace it with one of these words. Why?

Too many synonyms can become confusing to the reader; it becomes difficult for them to keep track of what they all refer too.  It also calls too much attention to the fact that you're trying to avoid repeating yourself, which can pull the reader out of the story. Usually, you don't want to use more than one synonym for a given word in a section. So in the first example, I might have described the manor simply as a building when the characters were far away and still approaching it. Then, when they have drawn close and I am describing the manor's appearance, I use manor and edifice, but no more than that. 

Make sure that it is clear what your synonym refers to

Another hazard of using synonyms is that they are not always as clear as the author thinks. We'll take the example of manor again. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the following words as synonyms for the word "manor":  castle, chateau, estate, hacienda, hall, manor, manor house, manse, palace, and villa.

The problem with most of these words is that they evoke a completely different image than the word "manor."  Take this example:

     Amy was relieved to finally leave the manor behind. As they drove away, she turned and looked out the back window as the palace vanished behind the trees.

That didn't work at all, did it? Using palace almost made it sound as though there were two buildings, as if Amy left one building and is now looking at another. Don't use synonyms unless it is clear what they're replacing.

One more caution on using synonyms as placeholders for a character's name (as in the Mistborn example above) can be found in this post.

Avoiding Over-Capitalization

A few weeks ago we discussed proper capitalization, and I mentioned that I would discuss the capitalization of words you make up for your story. These could be devices or technologies that you thought up, magical spells or items, or fictional illnesses and conditions. They could be unusual offices in a fictional government, brand names from a science-fiction universe, aspects of an alien culture, or places in another world.

The majority of words that require capitalization are proper nouns—names, titles, and the like; and, in most stories, the majority of made-up words will also be proper nouns. This means that a particularly complex science fiction or fantasy story can often end up with a high density of capitalized words.

Now, many experienced writers and editors advise that you avoid having too many made-up words in your story (I gave you that advice in this post). Unfortunately, one of the easiest and most common methods of avoiding made-up words is to take a common English word and capitalize it to show that it is significant. So instead of calling the council that rules your fictional society the Shoraki, you might call it the Council. Thus, while this method does avoid creating extra made-up words, it doesn’t cut down on the number of capital letters. This can sometimes lead to paragraphs that look like this:

     Thuum reached into the Golden Cask and removed the Sword of Ramunothet, grinning from ear to ear. When he presented this to the Council, everyone would see that he was the greatest of all the Hunters. And best of all, Norrikis would be forced to serve him as his Du’Shan.

     Cradling the sword in the crook of his arm, Thuum turned to leave and paused. Standing in the door to the Temple was a black-shrouded figure—an Ayelet Assassin. The man raised a gloved hand, revealing a Zurasha Gem in his palm. The gem began to glow as the Assassin focused his Mentalis within it.

Yeesh, am I right? That might seem like a deliberately exaggerated example, but it’s not—I have in fact encountered similar paragraphs in the wild.

There are many ways to avoid excessive amounts of capitalization: you can re-word a title or sentence to remove the need for a capitalized word; you can insert more action in order to further space out any capitalized words; or you can just decide that this is your world and these are your made-up words, so you can just not capitalize them if you don’t want to. It’s up to you, after all, to decide whether your made-up words are proper nouns that require capitalization, common nouns that don’t, or once-proper nouns that have reached such a level of ubiquity in the culture that they no longer require capitalization.

Here’s what that example might look like after some toning down:

     Thuum reached into the golden cask and removed the Ramunothet’s sword, grinning from ear to ear. When he presented this to the council, everyone would see that he was the greatest of all the Hunters; and best of all, Norrikis would be forced to serve him as his du’shan.

     Cradling the sword in the crook of his arm, Thuum turned to leave and paused. Standing in the door to the temple was a black-shrouded figure—an Ayelet assassin. The man raised a gloved hand to reveal a Zurasha gem in his palm, which began to glow with focused mentalis.

We’ve gone from twenty-four capital letters to ten. Hopefully, we can all agree that the second example is much more pleasant to look at and feels a little less like an over-done cliché. So keep an eye out for over-capitalization—remember, neither everything of significance in your story nor every word that you make up needs to be capitalized.

This is more or less pertinent to the article, right? Eh, close enough.

Calm Down About Naming Your Characters

The process of naming characters is one that writers tend to over-complicate, just like they do with writing cover letters or the first lines of their stories. There is plenty of advice out there on how to come up with realistic-sounding names for science fiction and fantasy or where to look for names in the real world. Whatever your method for coming up with character names, just remember to watch out for these common pitfalls:

Try to avoid names that are difficult to pronounce. Even if your audience isn’t reading your story out loud, they’ll usually attempt to decipher the pronunciation of any names they come across. For their sake, it might be easier to shorten or change complicated names. A character named Vyacheslav might go by the easier-to-read nickname of Slava, for instance. This will make the name easier for your readers to remember.

Avoid choosing too many names that all begin with the same letter. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s useful advice. The first letter of a name is always what will stand out most to the reader; in the case of difficult-to-pronounce names, the first letter might be the only thing your readers understand! Sean, Saladin, and Soo-mi are going to be harder for your readers to keep separate than Mike, Saladin, and Bo-yeon.

This problem gets even worse with names that share several common letters. If you have four main characters and three of them are named Tiala, Tahi, and Tolai, your readers will probably have trouble remembering who is who. It doesn’t matter if the letters are in a different order—our minds take in the whole word at once, and an h looks a lot like an l when we’re reading quickly. Remember: at the beginning of the story, your readers are already having to remember whole waterfalls’ worth of new information. Don’t make it harder for them by giving them several names that are virtually similar.

This is a problem that I often see crop up with twin characters. Naming your twins Tyler and Taylor might seem fun, but it will make it all sorts of difficult for your audience to keep them separate. Now, if you don’t want your readers to keep the twins separate—if you want them to essentially function as one unit at all times—then matching names shouldn’t be a problem. But there’s no need for your twins to have matching names, otherwise.

Hesitate before picking a name with special meaning. This is a temptation that I understand all too well. An easy way to name characters is to simply pick an important aspect of their personality or their role and to then find a name with that meaning. For instance, Darth Vader’s name literally means “father” in German, while Mufasa means “king.” This isn’t always a bad thing—we all love Vader and Mufasa, after all—but it is over-done and, in this age of the internet, potentially spoiler-riffic. You’ll often be better off choosing a meaningless-but-original name over a meaningful-but-heavy-handed name. If Star Wars had been released now, how long do you think it would have taken for the internet to figure out Vader’s identity based on his name? Not long. Too many villains have the root “mal” shoehorned into their name; quite a few protagonists have been named some variant of "Hiro" . . . and how many demons out there are named some version of “Crowley?”

I can think of three off the top of my head.

Make sure you have the correct era and nationality. This is simply a matter of taking the time to do your research. Don’t name your Russian character Kowalski—that’s a Polish name. Don’t name a woman in 1800s England Carly—that name didn’t really become common until the 1980s. If you’re not familiar with the naming conventions of the place or time, then do some research or ask someone who is familiar with them.

Don’t worry. Here’s the thing about character names—if you do a good job creating a deep, realistic, and engaging character, then it won’t matter what you name them. A good character will make just about any name seem to fit them; they will redefine people’s conceptions of what the name means. For instance:

When I first began watching How I Met Your Mother, I was completely thrown off by the fact that they named one of their characters “Barney.” I mean, come on—Barney? We all know what comes to mind when people hear that name.

But after a few episodes, Barney’s name ceased to bother me. After a few seasons, my mental picture of the name had been completely and permanently altered. That’s what a good, strong character can do.

So don’t worry about picking the perfect name for your character. Write a good character, and they will be able to make just about any name work for them.

Calm Down About the First Line of Your Story

You only get one chance to make a first impression. This is true in nearly every situation, from work to parties to first dates. It is also true of stories.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about the first lines of stories—how important they are, how they need to hook the reader, how they should effectively introduce the story, establish a unique voice, be surprising, etcetera, etcetera. And all of that is true. But I’ve also met so very many new writers who’ve gotten a little too consternated trying to write the “perfect” first line. I find that, more and more often, the only advice regarding first lines that I want to give to people is this: calm down.

First lines are like titles: if done well, they can hook the reader’s interest from the get go. Sometimes they just pop immediately to mind, and other times the writer really has to dig and work to find a good one. Sometimes writers knock it out of the park; more often, they simply manage something adequate. But even if first lines and titles are only average, most readers and editors will continue to give you their attention for at least a little while longer.

So yes, first lines are important; but they’re not worth the headache that many writers devote to them. There are only a few basic rules that I would suggest that you follow when writing the first lines of your stories:

Make sure that they are free of errors. Almost no editor or reader will set down your story simply because the first line didn’t “grab” them. But if you have grammar or punctuation errors in the very first sentence of your story, that will make them wary.

Don’t let them run on. As I’ve mentioned before, long sentences are both more difficult to properly construct and more difficult for your readers to follow. Asking your readers to swallow a massive amount of information at the very, very beginning of your story is a bit of a tall order. Try to give them the new information and introductions a little bit at a time.

Make sure they are on topic. Sometimes, in their quests to create engaging first lines, writers wander a little too far from their story. They begin on a largely unrelated topic and then wander from there to the story. The problem is, if that first line is so very engaging, your readers will only feel cheated when they find out that it has nothing to do with the actual story. Not a good way to gain fans.

That’s it.

I’m not saying that you should ignore all the other “first lines” advice out there. If you can craft a pertinent first line that is funny, intriguing, or fascinating, that’s great! That’s desirable and impressive; good for you. But here’s the thing: what is funny, intriguing, or fascinating to one person won’t be that impressive to many others. I can’t tell you how often I’ve had other people show me “amazing” first lines that I just wasn’t that impressed with. I’ve been completely floored by amazing first lines that other people just shrugged at with a “meh.” Almost no first lines will be amazing to everyone or even most everyone, so don’t break your brain trying too hard to amaze and wow. As long as you follow the tips above and don’t write anything that will actively repulse readers, you’ll be fine.

Now, this may or may not be a helpful illustration, but I found it fun. I’ve spent quite a bit of time browsing through the first lines of books and short stories, especially ones from very successful books. I’d like to share a few here. I think that, like me, you’ll see that many first lines are impressive, while others are simply quietly competent. Some hit you with a plot hook, while others simply begin a slow process of easing you into a long story.

In making this list, I have avoided all of the “classic” first lines that these lists usually cover. I love the first line of Pride and Prejudice and am less-than-wowed by the famous first line of Moby Dick. But this list is more focused on the first lines of modern stories that have come out in the last few decades. How are today’s writers—your contemporaries—beginning their books?

     Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling)

     Robert Langdon awoke slowly. (The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown)

     When he woke in the woods in the dark and cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. (The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

     “We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. (A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin)

     The trial was irretrievably over; everything that could be said had been said, but he had never doubted that he would lose. (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson)

     When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)

     My suffering left me sad and gloomy. (Life of Pi by Yann Martel)

     I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. (The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini)

     CLARE: It's hard being left behind. (The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger)

     My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer)

     Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death. (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green)

     The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened. (The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan)

     Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood. (The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan)

     When I think of my wife I always think of her head. (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn)

     At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin. (The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd)

     It was night again. (The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss)

     There is one mirror in my house. (Divergent by Veronica Roth)

     I have never been what you’d call a crying man. (11/22/63 by Stephen King)

     Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami. (A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini)

     Kalak rounded a rocky stone ridge and stumbled to a stop before the body of a dying thunderclast. (The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson)

     Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world. (Eragon by Christopher Paolini)

     There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. (Holes by Louis Sachar)     

See what I mean? I’m sure some of those really grabbed you; others not so much. And I’ll bet the ones that impressed you aren’t all the same as the ones that impressed me. But all of those books were widely-read to an extreme degree. So don’t fret too much about your first lines; they won’t usually make or break your story.

Pitfalls of Multiple Viewpoints

Last time, we discussed some of the ways that including multiple perspective characters in your story can serve the needs of the narrative. Today, I'd like to highlight some of the difficulties and pitfalls that you should consider before you start breaking out new perspectives all over the place.

The audience can lose track of characters and plotlines

Generally speaking, the more perspective characters you have in a story, the more plotlines and side characters you will need to flesh out the narrative. This is a difficulty that can quickly spiral out of control. I recently read a manuscript which dropped fourteen viewpoint characters on me in the space of thirty chapters. That is a lot of viewpoints and characters to keep track of, especially when you only get an occasional chapter here and there with each character. I can tell you the names of about half of the viewpoint characters, the occupations of most of the others, and almost nothing about anyone else.

Now, if I really buckled down and focused, I could probably remember most of the names of the other perspective characters. I could painstakingly map out each plotline in my head to be sure that I understood where things were going. But the trouble is that I just don't care enough to do so. The more work it is to follow a story, the more entertaining that story will have to be to pull readers along; and most of them just can't live up to it.

The audience will almost certainly end up disliking certain plotlines or viewpoint characters

Juxtaposition invites comparison.

Go ahead. Just try not to notice any differences.

If you place two portraits side by side, viewers will automatically begin to compare them. If you write a re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, then readers will instinctively compare it to every other version of the story that they've experienced.

The same thing happens with multiple perspectives and plotlines in a story. If you jump from perspective to perspective, readers will begin to compare those perspectives and will almost always end up enjoying or disliking one more than the others. They will begin to resent having to leave their favorite plotline or character to spend time on one that they don't like as much or even actively dislike. In the manuscript I mentioned before, I encountered this problem. Of the fourteen viewpoints I'd been given, I was really engaged by only three or four of them. Perhaps eight or nine of the others felt merely adequate by comparison, and the remaining ones I actively dreaded returning to. If the amount of entertaining story is too severely overwhelmed by boring or unpleasant, many readers will simply set the book aside.

Lack of variety

Many viewpoint characters tend to be something of a blank slate, a "normal" person that the audience can relate to (or project themselves upon) in a sea of distinctive side characters. Harry Potter, for instance, can often come across this way. When compared to the intelligent and bossy Hermione, the sardonic and insecure Ron, the bombastic and friendly Hagrid, and so on, Harry is comparatively low-key. He is interesting mainly as a lens through whom we can view the world and as a vehicle to carry us through exciting adventures, but no so much for his unique or compelling personality. And this isn't a bad thing; a protagonist that your audience can easily relate to or project themselves upon can be a powerful tool.

However, if you have multiple perspective characters in a single story, it can be very easy for them all to fall into this same rut. If you have four viewpoint characters who all have this same, easy to relate to/project upon personality, the story will get boring very quickly. Characters need to interesting and distinct from one another, whether they're side characters or protagonists.

Character knowledge vs. audience knowledge

Unless your perspective characters are all getting together to share their experiences and knowledge every time you switch the viewpoint, you will almost certainly have some characters who know things that the others don't. Your readers and you the author, on the other hand, know everything that any of the characters have learned at any given point. I have read many stories where knowledge began to bleed from one character to another even though they had never had an opportunity to share information. You have to keep track of which character knows what and how they know it; don't just lazily let the audience's knowledge inform the characters.

This also includes keeping track of which characters are acquainted and which aren't. Just because your audience is already familiar with a character doesn't mean the other protagonists are.

Pacing Problems

Time is one of the most difficult problems of multiple-perspective stories. In the manuscript I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite plotlines was left with two characters in a rather dire situation. The narrative then followed five or so other characters through a variety of situations, including some plotlines that would have taken several days to play out. The narrative then returned to those two characters . . . mere moments after we'd last seen them. I was confused and irritated. If we were just going to come back to these characters in the same scene, the same minute where we'd last seen them, then why did we ever leave them? Days had passed for other characters while seconds had passed for these.

Even more difficult to write and to keep track of as a reader is concurrent action, when two plotlines are occurring at the same time. This can be very difficult to convey, which is why some of the best writers of multiple-perspective stories carefully craft the plot so that no concurrent action takes place. If you leave character A to spend five minutes with character B, then five or more minutes will have passed when you return to character A again.

There are two reasons why this is important. First, if readers get too confused, then they might get irritated with the story or simply set the book aside. Second, there are few things that feel as cheap and deceptive as leaving characters in a tricky situation only to have them get rescued by a character who logically should have been somewhere else. If you make too many mistakes with the time and pacing of your story, you run the risk of seeming dishonest and leaving your readers feeling cheated.


Now, none of this is to say that you shouldn't write multiple-perspective stories. Just keep in mind the difficulties before you start. Don't be afraid to set aside a more complex, multi-viewpointed story in favor of a simpler story with fewer viewpoints that is more within the realm of your skills. Then, once you've had some practice, come back to the more complicated story. Better to wait and do a good story justice than to botch it because you weren't ready.

Metaphor and the Beginnings of Stories

Beginning a story can be a tricky thing. There’s a lot of information that you need to get across to your readers right away if they’re going to understand what’s going on: who the main character is, what their personality is like, where they are, what they’re doing, etc. And if you’re writing speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.) it gets even worse—you’ll probably have to introduce an entirely new world to your readers, complete with fantastic magic or technology, strange aliens or monstrous creatures, and imagined cultures with centuries or more of history.

That is a lot to get across to a reader, and deciding where to begin can be daunting. What can you show the readers that will be interesting and engaging without being so foreign as to be completely beyond understanding? What major elements of character and setting need to be given right away, and which need to be introduced slowly and subtly over time?

Sadly, I’m not here to answer all those questions for you. Maybe someday we’ll dive further into those topics, but this blog is for discussing errors that crop up in prose, not in plotting or content. So today I’d like to highlight a common prose mistake that many writers make in the beginning of their stories: the overuse of metaphors.

Most of you probably remember the simple definitions of simile and metaphor that you’ve been told since elementary school: a simile is describing one thing as being like something else, while a metaphor is describing a thing by saying it is something else even though you don’t literally mean it.

     Simile: The castle loomed over the town like an overprotective mother watching to make sure her children were playing safely.

     Metaphor: The train was a powerful, serpentine dragon winding through the hills, belching smoke from its great mouth.

Simple enough, right? Now I myself am not much of a metaphor man. I’ve heard a lot of talk about the poetic capabilities of metaphor and all that, but at the end of the day I tend to rely much more heavily on similes. If you’re a metaphor fan, then hey—more power to you. Just watch out to make sure you don’t pile up a lot of metaphors at the beginning of your story.

Why? Well, because at the beginning of your story, you haven’t been able to give all of that background we discussed earlier—all of the character, plot, personality, history, culture, setting, or explanation of various fantastical elements that your story might hold. And without all of that background, your readers won’t have any frame of reference to determine whether you are being metaphorical or literal.

For example, here’s the beginning of a story:

     Kalateia stood on the ridge surveying the dusty, bloody remnants of the battlefield. Corpses were strewn throughout the valley below, from mountain slope to mountain slope—her soldiers, the enemy’s soldiers, and hundreds of innocent civilians who’d had the misfortune to live in the valley where the two armies had met. Spider-like gravewagons crawled over the field, harvesting up bodies for use in future battles. The heavy corpses were difficult to gather, zombies clinging to the soil and to one another in a futile attempt to avoid the claws of the gravewagons.

So here’s the five-hundred-and-twenty-three-dollar question: are the corpses literal zombies or not? Are these “gravewagons” gathering up dead bodies that are simply trampled down into the blood-muddied soil and therefore seem to cling to the ground like strange zombies, or are those corpses literally undead and holding on to the ground and each other in an attempt to avoid being harvested? Without additional context, you can’t be absolutely certain, can you?

Even if you’re not writing speculative fiction, metaphors can be confusing at the beginning of a story. They can give your readers a moment where they’re knocked out of the story, where they stop to wonder, “wait, did I pick up a fantasy novel by mistake? What is this?” Sometimes it’s only a moment of confusion, sometimes it can be a few paragraphs or even several pages before they can be sure that you were being metaphorical. Either way, the last thing that you want to do during the first few pages of your story is introduce bumps into an already-steep learning curve. Beginnings are confusing enough—don’t add even more confusion!

You might think that your metaphor is clearly not meant to be taken literally, that there is no way someone could think you actually meant what you said. Something like:

     The bus moved through the field with surprising grace, a bulky cat carrying passengers to destinations unknown.

No one could take that literally, right?

Wrong.

There is almost no metaphor so outlandish that it will be clear to everyone that it’s not literal. So ease up on your metaphor usage until you’ve given your readers time to get some context.



P.S.
There won't be any new posts for Wednesday and Friday this week, as I'll be busy at the Superstars Writing Seminar! Regular updates will resume on the 9th.

Accents and Dialog: To Use, or Not To Use?

Accents and dialects—as in a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular person or group of people—can be difficult to convey in written prose. Usually, writers deliberately misspell words to reflect how they are actually pronounced with a certain accent. For example:

     “Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin’ en grab her up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh, de po’ little thing! De Lord God Amighty fogive po’ ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as long’s he live!’ Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb — en I’d ben atreat’n her so!” –Jim, from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

     “Sorry to do anythin’ as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant proceedin’s, as the king said wen he dissolved the parliament.”

–Sam Weller, from Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers.

     “Could ye manage ta go ten minutes without perforating yer aorta? Just once?!?” –Durkon, from Rich Burlew’s The Order of the Stick.

Accents and dialects in print can range from heavy alterations to nearly every word (as in the case of Jim above) to minor alterations to just a few words (as in the case of Durkon).

On the one hand, accents are a prominent part of cultural identity and daily life. We would be remiss not to include them in our writing from time to time. Many characters just don’t come across as strongly without their accent. Characters from certain cultures or ethnicities can seem unrealistic, or even offensive, without the proper accent.

On the other hand, deliberately misspelling words to convey an accent can quickly render a passage of text difficult if not impossible to read. Many readers will find such passages irritating; and if there’s enough of them, those readers might just walk away from the story.

Here’s a few tips for incorporating accents and dialects into your writing:

Know the purpose of the accent: Why is this accent part of your story? Is it conveying important information about the character? Is it adding to the realism of the narrative? Or did you just feel like writing an accent? Accents aren't a gimmick to attract readers; they're actually more likely to drive readers away. Try to make sure that the benefits of the accent outweigh the potential negative reader response.

Try to keep words recognizable: In our examples above, many of the altered words are still immediately recognizable. De, fogive, hisself, anythin’, ye, yer—especially in context, none of these are difficult to interpret. Other words, such as kaze and gwyne, have gone so far afield from their actual spellings that they force the reader to pause and sound them out. It forces them, temporarily, out of the story.

Don’t count on people reading the passages out loud: Unless you’re writing a script, you’re not writing something that is intended to be read aloud. Your defense of the accent might be that “it’s perfectly understandable if you read it out loud.” But just remember—many people will be reading your work in situations where they cannot read it out loud. Many others simply won’t want to. Still others will attempt to read it out loud but will be unfamiliar enough with the accent that they still won’t understand it.

Focus on unusual words, diction, or idioms: Accents and dialects often come with unusual words or phrases, such as Jim’s “she was plumb deef.” If you take out the misspellings, you can still get a bit of an idea of his speech simply from his use of the word plumb. “She was plumb deaf.” If you use the word haver (to babble or ramble foolishly), many readers will understand that your character is Scottish. Since the Russian language doesn’t have the articles a or the, many Russians have trouble learning to use those words in English. This can result in sentences such as, “We must find bag and then quickly return to car.” There are all useful methods of conveying accent and dialect without actually having to phonetically misspell words.

Make sure you know the accent: If you get an accent wrong, then many people will notice and be bothered by it. For example:

Now, I applaud Walter Koenig and Anton Yelchin as actors. But every time that I have to listen to Ensign Chekov speak, I get irritated. Why? “Nuclear wessels.” “Wictor wictor two.” The problem with these phrases is that they don’t represent a Russian accent—in fact, they represent the exact opposite of a Russian accent. Russians don’t have trouble with the sound “V”; their language is packed full of Vs. However, their language does not have a “W” sound. Consequently, they often say “V” instead of “W”: "I'm on my vay," for instance. The makers of Star Trek got the accent backwards, making Chekov sound like he has a speech impediment. (Just on the Ws and Vs, though. The rest is pretty good, especially as portrayed by Yelchin.)

Why is this such a problem? Because I usually love Russian characters simply because they are Russian. Because of Chekov’s mixed-up accent, however, he irritates me. I am thrown out of the story by a character who should have been pulling me in. There are enormous amounts of people out there who understand any given accent or dialect you might choose. Find one of them and ask them to help you out with your character’s speech.

P.S.

A personal pet peeve: I mentioned above how many Russians omit a and the when speaking in English. They do not omit the words my, your, his, her, our, or other possessive articles. They have those words in Russian, and they know how to use them. It’s really just a and the.

How Not to Write a Cover Letter, Part Two

If you’ve followed my last bit of advice for writing cover letters (be brief), then you’re probably well on your way to the second bit of advice:

Be Professional

The word professional is used in several ways—today, I’m using it in the “having a dignified, business-like bearing” sense. You may have seen many authors who like to have fun and joke around; and one of the reasons that you want to be a writer might be the prospect of having a profession that often feels more like play than work. But now is not the time for that.

Behind the scenes, most of your favorite authors are probably very professional. The ones who joke around with their editors and agents do so because they have an established working relationship or friendship with those people; they probably weren’t joking around with them when they began their careers. You don’t need to try to be funny or clever in your cover letter, you don’t need to put the editor at ease. Most agents and editors will be far more impressed by quiet professionalism than by bombastic humor or silliness.

Format your cover letter and manuscript professionally: We’ll discuss common manuscript formats another day (probably next week), but for now just remember that your letter should look business-like. Don’t use strange fonts; you don’t (usually) have to use Times New Roman or Courier, but you’ll never go wrong with them. Garamond, Cambria, and Georgia are some other good, professional, easily-readable fonts. Keep your text black and your font size and spacing normal (around size 11 or 12; 1.15 spacing for your cover letter and 2.0 spacing for your manuscript).

Follow submissions guidelines: Every editor and agent has slightly different preferences, and they’ll always make it clear what those preferences are. Find their submissions instructions (usually listed under “submissions” or “writers’ guidelines” on their website) and follow them with exactness. These guidelines will include instructions on where to send submissions, how to address them, how to format them, how many can be sent at once, and how long you should wait before sending them an inquiry about your manuscript. Editors and agents will always notice when you haven’t followed instructions, and it will never reflect well on you.

Don’t use gimmicks: In regards to manuscript submissions, a “gimmick” is any unusual little trick that new authors use in an attempt to “get noticed.” I have heard of (and received) many of these, including: formatting manuscripts in unusual fonts and colors; printing manuscripts on any color of paper but white; inserting messages to the editor into the body of your story; turning pages upside down; delivering manuscripts in person (possibly while dressed in cosplay); hand-writing cover letters or manuscripts (possibly with crayon); recording audio cover letters; attaching formal headshots of yourself; inserting illustrations into the story; and many, many more. These sort of gimmicks will stand out to editors and agents, but not in a good way.

Don’t use emoticons: Emoticons are fine for text messages, social media, and e-mails to someone you know well; but they have no place in a cover letter. Emoticons are the very antithesis of professional—social, silly, and overly familiar. Don’t use them.

A professionally-formatted cover letter and manuscript might seem boring to you, but that is good. Your goal here is not “to stand out from the crowd” or to “catch attention.” Your goal is to give an impression of competence, patience, and professionalism. Remember—the only thing that should stand out about your submission is the impressive quality of your story.

Part three of this series (be humble) is here.

How Not to Write a Cover Letter, Part One

NaNoWriMo is over, which means that there are multitudes of writers out there with finished manuscripts that they’re itching to send out to potential publishers. With that in mind, I’m going to switch gears for a little bit here on the Story Polisher. The primary purpose of this blog is to highlight the many mistakes that novice (and not-so-novice) writers make, which collectively can render a manuscript unpublishable. Usually, I focus on errors in prose, because I believe that prose is the most important aspect of writing and simultaneously the most difficult to improve.

But for the next few weeks, I’m going to give advice on getting a manuscript ready for submission; on editing your story, formatting the manuscript, and writing a cover letter. After exhausting themselves to get a story completed, many writers just don’t have the energy or attention span to give these non-story elements of the trade sufficient effort. Conversely, many other writers give these elements far too much attention and end up over-doing things.

A few years ago, I wrote an editorial for Leading Edge Magazine titled How Not to Write a Cover Letter, in which I identified three major mistakes that novice writers make in their cover letters. The first, which we’ll go over today, is making a cover letter too long.

Keep it Brief

First, a definition: a cover letter is a brief note of introduction which the author attaches to their submission. The key word there is brief. No cover letter should ever be more than one page long—and note that this is a maximum limit, not a suggested length. Generally, your cover letter shouldn’t be longer than a paragraph or two.

The purpose of your cover letter is not to convince the editor to read your story. If you submitted the story, they will read it (or at least some of it). Your cover letter is just there to give them some basic information that can’t be conveyed through the story:

     Your name

     The title of your story

     The length of your story

     (Maybe) A (very) brief description of your story

     A list of your previous (professional or semi-professional) publishing credits

     (Maybe) A brief description of your education, training, or life experiences (. . . wait for it . . .) which relate to the story that you’ve submitted.

That’s it.

Many new writers tend to balk at how short their cover letter ends up being when they pare it down to these few things, especially if they don’t have any previous publishing credits to list. They feel like they need to pad it out somehow, give it some “substance.” Other writers seem to think that the cover letter is a chance to “wow” publishers, that they need to show off what an excellent writer they are right from the start. They pen long letters packed with fluff that’s supposed to show off their skills. In reality, it does just the opposite.

Here’s the thing: editors spend all day reading. Their desks or e-mail inboxes tend to be piled high with manuscripts of various lengths. The last thing they need is extra reading. If your cover letter seems extremely short to you, then that’s great! That is exactly what they want to see.

Pictured: An editor with a light workload.

On the other hand, if an editor pulls up a new submission only to find a wall of text between them and the story proper, that isn’t good. At the very least, they’ll be a little irritated. They would probably still read the story, but they definitely won’t waste their time on that big huge letter.

Here are some things I’ve seen in so very many cover letters which, without question, should not be in a cover letter:

Your personal bio: This is a manuscript submission, not a dating ad. I’m sure you’re a wonderful person, but that doesn’t matter. No editor cares who you are, where you’re from, or what your life is like. They don’t care if you like piña coladas, or what wacky antics your family gets up to, or where you went to school, or what you studied. You do not matter. All that matters is your story—if it’s good enough, they’ll publish it. If it’s not good enough, they won’t. Nothing you write about yourself can change that.

Stories about your story: Don’t share the entertaining or humorous story of where you got the idea for this story, or how it evolved over time. Don’t tell them you wrote if for NaNoWriMo or that you typed it all in one feverish night of inspiration. Behind-the-scenes features aren’t going to make your story more interesting.

Recommendations: Don’t tell the editor how so many of your friends or family enjoyed the story. It doesn’t matter if your professor thought it was magnificent or if your writing group thought this was the one that would get published. The only possible exception to this rule is if a respected, well-known author or other editor read and enjoyed the story and explicitly recommended that you send the story to this editor. If the author didn’t give you permission, then don’t try to name-drop them into your cover letter.

Non-professional publication credits: Much as I love this here blog of mine, I would not mention it in a cover letter (unless, perhaps, I were trying to publish a book on writing prose). Anyone can write a blog, so it isn’t much of an accomplishment to have done so. Self-published stories do not belong on your cover letter, whether they were posted on a blog or are for sale on Amazon. Being published by an amateur college publication doesn’t count, unless they’re at least semi-professional (i.e. they pay their authors at least some money). The exception to this rule is audience: if your blog is widely popular (several hundred hits a day at least) or you’ve sold thousands (note the plural) of copies of your self-published story, then that is worthy of note.

A long story synopsis: The shorter your story, the shorter the synopsis should be. A novel may be worth a full paragraph (check the submission guidelines, as some publishers specifically ask for one to three), while a short story shouldn’t get more than a sentence. Often, with a short story, you don’t need any description of the story at all.

Any of your life experiences that don’t strongly relate to the story: If your story is set in the heart of the Congo and you have had personal experience living in the Congo, then that is worth mentioning. If you lived in the Congo but that only faintly influences the story, then don’t bring it up. If you’re a practicing lawyer who has written a legal thriller, that’s worth mentioning. If there’s only one brief courtroom scene in the story, then that’s not very important.

You shouldn’t generally mention that you attended a writing workshop or took a class taught by a famous author unless the story that you’re submitting is one that you wrote in the workshop or class in question. Again, this is just name-dropping unless it’s actually pertinent to the story.

Mentions of other stories you’ve submitted: You might thank them for the time they gave to another story you submitted, but don’t say any more than that. (I’ll write more on this later.)

Here’s a sample of a cover letter I might write to an editor:

1^st December, 2014

(Publisher/Publication Name)

(Publisher’s Listed Address)

Hello (Editor),

     Thank you for taking the time to review my (short story/novel), Most Excellent Story Name. It is about (insert appropriate-length pitch here), and is approximately (number) words long. I wrote it based on my experiences in (related life experience).

     (If applicable) Here are my past publishing credits:

     Story in Issue 21 of Magazine

     Thank you again for your time,

     Christopher Baxter

Remember: editors are busy. If you waste too much of their time with your cover letter, then they might not feel like giving any more of their time to your story. Brief is best.

Part two of this series (be professional) is here and part three (be humble) is here.

Eating During Dialog

Last time, we discussed the need for a character’s actions during dialog to be meaningful—to demonstrate something about their state of mind or to be part of a task that they are trying to carry out, rather than simply being inserted to create the necessary ebb and flow in the conversation.

One task I often see characters performing during dialog is eating. It is usually a good method for achieving the goals we discussed last time: it gives you plenty of distinct actions to fill in the gaps of the conversation; it can be used to reveal a character’s personality or state of mind (for example, a character who eats in the middle of an important conversation could seem flippant or disinterested, while a polite character might be very careful about chewing with their mouth closed and always swallowing before they speak); and it is a realistic task that people often carry out while they eat (especially if the conversation takes place at a meal or if the character is played by Brad Pitt).

He is having a conversation in every one of these scenes. (Image from Cracked.com.)

So if you want to have a character eat during a conversation, go for it! Just be sure to look out for these common pitfalls:

Food that doesn’t affect the conversation

     Brad took another bite of his sandwich. “You should have just killed him when you had the chance.”

So . . . is Brad speaking with his mouth full, or are we supposed to assume that he chewed and swallowed before speaking? If he is speaking with his mouth full, how are the other characters reacting to that? Is it disgusting to see? Are they having trouble understanding his words? Or, if he’s waiting before he speaks, how are the other characters reacting to that awkward pause?

This is a little problem that becomes increasingly incongruous the longer the conversation goes on. We all know that a conversation with someone who is eating doesn’t usually flow quite the same way that speaking with someone normally does; and if you fail to acknowledge that reality in your story, it can make the conversation seem subtly unrealistic to your readers.

Now, fixing this problem can also be a little tricky. You don’t want to have to clarify whether or not the character is speaking with their mouth full or not every time they take a bite—it would clutter up the conversation very quickly.  A better option would be to simply describe the character’s combined eating/speaking habits at the beginning of the conversation and only briefly allude to them once or twice later on. You can also try to rearrange the prose so that it raises fewer questions about how the food is affecting the character’s speech (i.e. having them take bites after they speak instead of before). So, our previous example could be reworked in this manner:

     “You should have just killed him when you had the chance,” Brad said. He took another bite of his sandwich.

Simultaneous biting and speaking

     “You should have just killed him when you had the chance,” Brad said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Remember what we discussed about “ing” verbs in this post? The above construction implies that Brad is speaking at the same time that he takes a bite of his sandwich. Go try to take a bite of something while you speak. It doesn’t work, does it? Your mouth can’t handle both tasks at once—even Brad Pitt has to eat before or after he speaks a line. People can chew and talk at the same time, but they can’t take a bite and talk at the same time.

Too much attention to the minutiae of eating

     Brad took another bite of his sandwich. “You should have just killed him when you had the chance,” he said around the mouthful.

     I don’t even want to kill him now,” Jose replied.

     Brad swallowed and brushed crumbs from his chin. “Seriously? He sure seems to want to kill us.” He took another bite of his food.

     “That doesn’t mean we can’t find a peaceful resolution to all this.”

     Brad swallowed again and took another bite. “Death is peaceful.”

     “Dying isn’t.” Jose shook his head. “There’s got to be another way.”

      “So we kill him in his sleep.” Brad shrugged, swallowed, and finished off his sandwich. “Peacefully.”

This happens quite a lot in the manuscripts I edit. Your audience doesn’t need a blow-by-blow account of every single bite, chew, swallow, and face-wipe. We understand how eating works. Focus instead on the less usual parts of eating—if you need a beat in the conversation, have the character drop a fork, or get something stuck in their teeth and try to get it out, or bite their tongue. They could spill mustard on their shirt or choke and cough up a disgusting spray of crumbs and spittle. Any of that would be more interesting than bite, chew, swallow, repeat. And if you don’t want the meal to take any of those particular turns, that’s fine—just space out the biting, chewing, and swallowing enough that they don’t grow tiresome and intersperse them other actions and information.

To close, here’s an example of all of this done well from Charlie Holmberg’s The Paper Magician.

     [Mg. Thane] stabbed his fork into two pieces of pasta and raised them to his lips. He tasted them, chewing, and his eyes brightened just a bit more. “I’d say, Ceony,” he said after swallowing, “had I not been present for the lessons, I’d think you’d found a way to enchant pasta.”

     Ceony smiled. “You like it?”

     He nodded, scooping up another bite. “It tastes just as good as it smells. That’s a sign of a well-rounded person. I should congratulate you.”

     “On my person or my pasta?”

     Light danced in his eyes. He didn’t answer.

     Ceony tasted her chicken, relieved it wasn’t too dry. Three bites into her own dinner, Mg. Thane said, “Oldest of four.”

     “Two sisters, one brother,” Ceony replied. “Do you have a large family? You seem like someone who suffered through a great deal of sisters.”

     “I’ve suffered through a great many people, but none of them sisters. I’m an only child.”

     That explains a few things, Ceony thought.

     A few seconds of silence passed between chewing bites. Not wanting the time to grow long, Ceony asked, “When do you get groceries?”

     He glanced at her. “When I run out, I suppose. Groceries are my most dreaded chore.”

     “Why?”

     He lowered his fork and leaned his chin onto his hand, elbow on the table edge.

     “They require going to the city,” he stated. “And it’s hot out, besides.”

     Ceony paused as she cut into the next morel of chicken. “Do you freckle?”

     He laughed. “Now there’s a conversation turn—”

    “I mean,” Ceony began, “I could understand not going outside if you freckle.” She glanced to her hands, spotted with freckles of her own. They had a tendency to cover any bit of skin exposed to the sun between March and October.

     “I don’t freckle,” he said. She must have been frowning at her hands, for he added, “And there’s nothing wrong with freckles, Ceony. Heaven forbid you look like everyone else in this place.”

     Ceony smiled and shoved some pasta in her mouth to keep the grin contained.

     “And since you have so much extra time,” Mg. Thane said, “your first quiz will be tomorrow morning.”

Making Movement Meaningful

Pure dialog can get confusing and even boring; it can also fail to convey the many subtleties that people communicate through means like expression and body language. This is the reason that writers often insert small actions into passages of dialog. The actions could be changes in a character’s expression, small movements or gestures, or specific tasks that the character is performing while they talk. For example:

     “I don’t think we should go after her,” Sofia whispered. She shifted in her seat and closed her eyes with a sigh.

     Matilde glanced at Sofia and then looked away. “Why not?”

    “She decided to leave all on her own. No one made her.” Sofia shook her head and bit her lip. “She obviously doesn’t want to be here.”

     “Maybe . . .” Matilde replied, looking down at her feet while she shuffled them back and forth. “But what happens when she decides she wants to be here after all and it’s too late for her to come back? Chiara tends to be pretty impulsive.”

     Sofia stuck out her tongue. “We still can’t force her to do what she doesn’t want to,” she said, waving her hands.

     Matilde looked up with a frown and then turned away again, wringing her hands. “We could. And maybe we should.”

Now, that passage was packed a little too full of actions—every single line of dialog was accompanied by at least one action. That’s partly because I wanted to fit as many examples as I could into one passage, but many people do write their conversation scenes this way.  But why is that too many actions? Am I saying that you should never have an action to accompany every line of dialog? No. The problem isn’t the number of actions so much as it is the lack of purpose behind so many of the actions.

Let’s list the actions from the passage again:

     shifted in her seat

     closed her eyes

     with a sigh

     glanced at Sofia

     and then looked away

     shook her head

     and bit her lip

     looking down at her feet

     shuffled [her feet] back and forth

     stuck out her tongue

     waving her hands

     looked up with a frown

     and then turned away again

     wringing her hands

What are each of these actions supposed to convey? Why is the character performing that particular action at that point in the conversation?  With some of these actions, the purpose is pretty clear. When someone closes their eyes and sighs, for instance, it’s usually a pretty good indication of weariness or irritation. Hand wringing and lip biting are decent ways to indicate nervousness or internal confliction. And frowns are pretty clear indications of unhappiness or severe confusion.

But even those examples could each have more than one meaning. As for the others, they don’t convey anything meaningful. What is the audience supposed to learn from the fact that Sofia “shifted in her seat”? Is the seat uncomfortable? Is she emotionally uncomfortable and the movement is a physical indication of that fact? Was she trying to relax or get a better view of something? There are so many reasons to shift in one’s seat that simply describing the action carries next to no meaning.

Why is it significant that Matilde looked at Sofia and then looked away? What does that mean? What does it mean that she’s looking down at her feet while shuffling them? Is her turning away after looking up with a frown supposed to tell us something about her thoughts? Because it isn’t. It might be vaguely sort-of hinting at some sort of emotional state, but it sure isn’t informing the audience of anything.

Even Sofia sticking out her tongue is confusing. There are so many ways and reasons that people stick out their tongues:

Each of these images conveys a different emotion, and yet they could all be described as someone “sticking out his or her tongue.” From the context, we could probably narrow down Sofia’s gesture to two or three of these, but it still wouldn’t be clear. Is she disgusted? Petulant? Nauseated? We just don’t know.  Remember—most expressions and movements can indicate more than one emotion, thought, or state of mind. Just because you know which meaning you were trying to convey doesn’t mean that your readers will get it.

“Looks” are probably the worst category of offenders on this front. Throughout the conversations I read, characters are “looking” all over the place. They look at one another, they look at their feet, at the wall, at the table, into the distance, into the sky, at their hands, at their clothes. And most of it doesn’t have any meaning whatsoever. Beware the meaningless look!

This usually happens when a writer can tell that the conversation needs a beat or a brief lull to break up the dialog, but they don’t have anything for the characters to do to provide that break. If you need a beat but you can’t think of a meaningful movement or expression for your character, then give them something to do! In our example above, Sofia could have been trying to finish some (plot-related) paperwork while they conversed or Matilde could have already begun packing to go after Chiara. The possibilities are endless.

Give your manuscript to a friend and ask them to highlight any point where the purpose of movements or expressions was unclear or confusing. If you can’t come up with a meaningful movement to replace the vague one, then don’t be afraid to cut it out entirely.