Tag: revision

Does your draft have dialog that goes on for pages? Feels like a screenplay more than a novel?

You (or more accurately) your characters need some action: Verbs, my friends. You are in need of verbs.

Step 1: Choose a dialog-heavy scene.

Step 2: Brainstorm abut what kinds of actions the characters might be doing while they are having this conversation. F. ex., mom and son arguing at the grocery store about if he can borrow the car Friday night. Potential actions: picking out groceries (be specific!), checking labels, returning groceries to shelf (possibility for character development! Does this character go to the trouble of returning item where it belongs or not?), smelling squeezing, poking. More character development: are items neatly stacked in cart, or thrown in?

Step 3: Insert actions into dialog.

Step 4: See where you can trim dialog by allowing characters’ actions to speak louder than their words.

Characters who are important enough to interact with your main character regularly need to be multi-dimensional, not flat.

What is a flat character?

One that only has one set of attributes, who always has the same kind of emotional response to situation. Check the words you use to attribute a character’s speech; if s/he is always sneering or whining or laughing, then you might have a problem. Multi-dimensional characters have different facets to their character. Even the bad guys have good moments, and the good guys can be jerks sometimes. What is interesting are the circumstances that make a person act slightly out of character.

Unreliable teen narrators (like Melinda in SPEAK) make this harder on the author, especially when writing in the 1st person POV. The narrator is still maturing and has a limited scope and understanding of the world. It is helpful to craft a few scenes where the reader can assess more about the situation than the narrator does.

If your character is a chord instead of a single note, your story becomes richer.

Today we have a guest blogger, our own near and dear Bookavore. She manages a bookstore now, and has had some kind of bookselling job ever since she turned 16. Bookavore reads twice as many books in one year as I do in 10, so I consider her my in-house book expert.

She recently wrote a post about two things she is sick of seeing in books, particularly YA novels: sloppy writing in regards to race and two-dimensional characters. It’s called "In which I get frustrated and plead with authors." You need to read it right now. But brace yourself. She doesn’t pull any punches.

What do you think about her ideas?

Never ask loved ones or blood relatives to critique your manuscript. They can read it, but only with the understanding that their job is to cheer you on. Their only responses shall be "That’s great, honey!" or "Wow! Now I know why you’re so excited!" or "I am so proud of you!"

If they say "You spent all that time locked in the closet and this is what you produced?" you are allowed to burst into tears. (I do not encourage full-blown temper tantrums complete with banging head against floor, but I understand that sometimes they are necessary.)

You need peers – people who are also writing and who read a lot – to give you a decent critique of your work.

Rule of thumb: don’t ask loved ones to read your manuscript and don’t ask critique buddies to pick up their socks.

EDITED TO ADD: Several of you commented that if your loved one is a writer, s/he can offer extremely helpful critiques. I agree. That works in my family, too. But I think it is rare. My tips this month are written with new NaNoWriMo participants in mind and I am guessing that few of them have a loving, in-house, qualified critiquer.