Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 40: Unnecessary Scenes| Kim Weiland

by | Jan 11, 2017 | Advice, Blog

The advice in this post is just so marvellous I have just purchased her book on story structure and the accompanying workbook. Ms Weiland offers succinct advice not only on what to avoid, as well as why to avoid it and what it does to your narrative. I honestly could not have put it better. Rather than rehash the whole article I will summarise her main points, add my own input and examples, and link back to the original at the bottom.

Shall we begin?

The breadth of description required of written prose is vast in comparison with visual media. However, the author is both guide and gatekeeper to the narrative description, deciding what the reader needs to know and when. Authors are also human and, as such, we like to play with the details and show off. This is true whether we write for fun or publication. The fact remains that if we wish our writing to improve there are four habits we must consciously learn to avoid.

Looking too deeply at the relationships between minor characters. However close the attachment, or tense the conflict, the relationship between the minor players need not get a mention unless it has an effect on the plot. if you want to explore it further you can always take a leaf out of the likes of Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Shadow) or Anne McCaffrey (Nerilka’s Story) who have written whole versions of their works from the perspective of minor characters
Travelling filler and uneventful journeys. Don’t try to stage direct an empty theatre: you’ll bore yourself as well as your audience.
Repetition of conversations already witnessed. Say you were at a party, but one of the guests was reciting back to you a discussion you had already heard. You’d get bored pretty quickly right? So will your readers.
Information-dumping. If you have found out something really interesting, and you just have to share it, use an end note (not the same as a footnote). It’s what they’re for. This way, you can still demonstrate the level of research you have put into your book, but you don’t have to break your narrative, and the reader gets a choice whether to read the proffered information or not.

Unnecessary scenes damage your story in several ways.

They bore readers. Just like the way an advert break during really good film right before the climax could put off a viewer and make them change the channel, an info-dump or disjointed tangent will make them simply put the book down. Worse? It could make them avoid your other or future titles.
Misdirection for dramatic effect. Don’t be the taxi driver who goes the long way around just because they want a bigger fare (we’ve all met at least one). Your reader is your passenger. They don’t need to know what the field they are passing looks like, or what people are doing at the side of the road unless it has something important to do with the story (disposing of what could be a body?). Deliberate red herrings are an old fashioned, cliched device and have very much gone out of fashion.
Derail narrative. On the theme of minor-character relationship-overshare: narrative prose is not the same as a TV program where all speaking-character relationships must be visible and clear from the off. Unless the feelings your main character has towards the ever so dishy, leather clad pirate (Once Upon a Time) have a bearing on the direction of the plot (they get there eventually), they need to be left out. In Speaker for the Dead, Novinha’s love for Libo (who does not take an active role and appears mostly in reference) causes her to lock her files and hide the results of her experiments for fear that he would make the same discovery that had cost his father’s life. In this case, withholding that information did not have the desired effect, but the story would not have made sense without it. However, it could have easily been overdone, and I have seen it overdone time and time again (*cough*, Sword of Truth Series, *cough*)
Fragment the story and distract your reader. If a scene does not fit, it can wreck the whole cohesion of the book. Keeping unnecessary scenes is like trying to add extra pieces to an already completed jigsaw puzzle just because you happen to like the colour contrast. Not only to they not add anything substantial to the picture as a whole, but they can detract from, hide, or even break up the other pieces.

Here is how to avoid these errors.

Plotter or not, once you have completed your first draft (not before) you will have to go through your novel from the perspective of a reader, but before you delete anything, save your book under a different name (2nd draft?), that way if you want to recover something you have previously deleted and paste it in a later part of the book, you will be able to.

Mentally delete them. One by one, go through and look at every scene. Can your story survive without it, in regard to character development or plot cohesion? If so, delete it. You don’t need it.
Sweep for opportunity-darlings. Those little nuggets of ‘narrative genius’ that occurred to you as you wrote but somehow slipped past your mental outline-guards? Get rid of them. If your story can survive without them, in regard to the criteria in the previous step, then they are gatecrashing your party, abusing the free bar, and need to be thrown out. Hint: they’ll be more common in the messy middle.
Good use of scene structure. Here, I refer you to Ms Weiland’s guide to scene and sequel construction which can be found by following the link below. You’ll also find the Amazon.com link to her book.

Source:

Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 40: Unnecessary Scenes – Helping Writers Become Authors

More about choosing an editor.

by | Dec 6, 2016 | Advice, Blog

Choosing an editor is not easy. The good ones have fees that could choke a horse. However, they are GOOD editors, so the fees they charge are worth it. If you can afford those fees. Unfortunately, many Indie authors just can’t break out that kind of cash.

Enter the rip off artists. They come in many levels of incompetence from authors who just want to make some side cash but don’t really know how to edit, to outright thieves who will take your money and give you nothing in return. Unfortunately, the latter kind thrives on the internet. We have all heard the stories of writers victimised by people calling themselves editors but didn’t even fix spelling mistakes, much less formatting, style, or continuity issues. As an editor myself, I am always learning and improving my craft this kind of thing makes me so angry – not least because it taints all freelance editors with the same reputation – but rest easy. This post is not an estate agent type post telling you to only trust me and ignore all those other editors. Finding the right editor for you is important.

So here are some guidelines for how to find the honest ones, pick an one, and dealing with them. Feel free to pipe up in the comments with any other suggestions I might have missed.

Go with someone you know or who is recommended. If you can’t do that, the following steps can help.
Do your research: collect reviews and referrals. How do they respond to complaints?
Ask for a sample edit from the first chapter of your book, before any money changes hands. A new editor should be willing to do this to get your business, and most honest editors offer this as standard.
Have someone you already trust and knows what they are doing, read the sample and let you know if they are good.
Try to find one who will take a deposit up front and charges balance when the job is complete. If they demand the whole balance up front, steer clear. That said, I do expect full payment up front for small jobs (less than 10 pages =2500 words), but 50% of that is refundable if the client is not happy with my work
Generally, I would advise you to avoid those who demand the full amount upfront. If their work is genuinely substandard –this is not the same as being unhappy about harsh feedback- do not pay the balance and demand your deposit back. New writers should be aware that it often takes several rounds of editing before your work is publishable.
No editor can wave a magic wand and suddenly turn an unstructured first draft into a literary marvel in one go, and no reputable editor will claim to be able to. It depends entirely on the submitted work.
Not all editors offer the same services or deal with the same type of text. You need to find out which genre they will work with and what levels they offer. I offer all four levels and am pretty much happy to edit whatever crosses my desk. Others may only deal with certain genres, or offer higher level editing. An honest editor will use your work to assess the level you are writing at and determine what the work needs. They will advise you what needs to be done, and if they are not able to offer the full scope of work required, you may find they will point you in the direction of someone who can.
If you have ever dealt with an editor who has given you less than the quality of work promised for your money, you still have rights. A freelancer is subject to the same consumer laws as everyone else.
You want to engage with someone who will cut deep and pick up the typos and mistakes. Remember, a good editor is on your side. A reader is not. The editor wants you to be able to publish your best work possible. You are not looking for ‘nice’. If they go too easy on you or appear to be in a rush to get to print, it can still count as bad editing. The reader will not be nice or give you the benefit of the doubt as it’s your first book. They will, at best, put your book down and never read your work again. At worst, they will leave a scathing review from wherever they bought it, and they will still never read your work again.
A good editor will not point you at a publisher or insist that their services rely on you going with a particular press. If they do, they are probably taking a back-hander. I’m afraid you will have to do your homework for that too.

Advice to New Authors.

by | Oct 23, 2016 | Advice, Blog

Introduction

Below follows a checklist of advice for new authors who are thinking about approaching an editor before publication. In writing this I hope to help authors avoid some of the potential pitfalls and later disappointment when their edited work comes back to them.

Write what you know, research what you don’t.

If you are in any doubt about certain details look them up, take copious notes, and use them. Do not guess and do not attempt to fudge through the manuscript, making details up as you go along. In long pieces, fudging details will result in plot inconsistencies which will be obvious to a reader and put them off reading any more of your work. This is important when dealing with any genre but do not panic.

Use your first draft to guide your second by going through it and making a note of where you guessed details. It will require a great deal of time and honesty on your part but the end result will be worth the effort. There are a huge number of writing guides available on the market to help guide you in your research. I will provide a list of suggestions for sources and guides at the end of this post.

Use an outline.

This will help you to avoid plot inconsistencies. If you don’t have one, make one. This will provide a frame upon which you hang your story. For instance, if your main character is a PI and was last seen tailing their mark through the back alleys of Shanghai, you cannot have them, in the next chapter, and only two hours later, sunning themselves on a beach in California, having forgotten key details about their job. An outline will help you organise your story into general points. Get yourself a massive block of drawing paper (A1 or A2 if you can), some felt tips, and some big and brightly coloured post-it notes to write your ideas on and mind map it. Once you are happy with it, drag out the blue tac to fix those notes down (you don’t them falling off) and pin that outline where you can see it. Then if you have an idea later on in the writing process consult your outline before just writing it in. Does it really fit the narrative? If it doesn’t, you will have saved yourself a great deal of work. If it does, you will be able to see how to weave in your ends and not have them trailing from your finished piece (forgive the textiles analogy).

Make sure your storyline is clear and all action is relevant, driving your story.

Quantity is not the same as quality. The minutiae of opening doors and sitting to tables is not needed. If it has nothing to do with the plot such as a character slamming a door to demonstrate a bad temper or obstruct an attacker, or searching a room for an object, leave it out.

Make sure your main characters are prominent and well fleshed out.

Don’t be tempted to introduce too many main protagonists, or add them as you go along. Use your outline to help you consider which characters you will need and keep it to a minimum. If there are too many, you risk upstaging your protagonist. Again, this can be fixed if you have already started, or completed your first draft. Go through it chapter by chapter and consider whether their action is in character. Can it be

To be believable, characters must be multi-faceted and nuanced. Make their wants and needs clear. Even in fantasy, nobody is either all good, or all bad. ‘Good’ characters are not flawless. What makes them interesting is how they overcome those flaws. Nor are ‘bad’ character’s all bad. Everyone has reasons for acting the way they do and these must be made clear to your audience. However, these do not have to be revealed all in one go. For instance, the Evil Queen in the TV series Once Upon a Time, acted out of revenge against Snow White whom she felt was the party responsible for the death of the young man she actually loved. She was then manipulated, by her power-hungry mother, into a loveless marriage to a man three times her age just because he was a king. The Evil Queen became consumed by her grief and went on a murderous and devastating campaign to revenge herself against the cause of that pain. The series opened with the promise ‘to destroy the happiness’ of everyone in attendance of the wedding of Snow and Prince Charming, and worked back, revealing Regina’s path to that moment.

In Orson Scott Card’s ‘Speaker for the Dead’, (if you have not read this, I recommend you do) the now adult Andrew Wiggin having discovered the enormity of what he had done as a child, had never returned to earth. His own fictional work ‘The Hive Queen’ and the ‘Hegemon’ had reduced the name ‘Ender’ from a symbol of heroism and saviour of humanity, to an epithet ‘Ender the xenocide’. These books told the whole truth of the situations of the people about which they were written with nothing hidden. The Speakers were not there to give either vilifying post-mortem expose’s or shining accolades, but to give a true accounting of the life of the dead with all their flaws and virtues laid out. This is how to treat your characterisation.

Individual character bios could help you to get to know them and an even better perk, is that they can be updated for use in sequels or series. Don’t go into too much depth with these though, especially with characters’ physical appearance. You don’t want to end up bogged down in small details, but it will enable you to refer back to earlier books if you have crib to work from. Index cards are a very easy way to do this. If you are feeling especially adventurous, a character database would also be useful.

Is your setting well defined and clear to the reader?

Whether you are writing a Sci-fi novel or a work of Historical fiction, your world and setting has to be clear to the reader (more so for the latter than the former). Your world needs physical rules which will in turn place limitations on action, you can’t have a crusading knight whipping out a smartphone to take a selfie with Edessa burning in the background (Okay, a time-travelling knight could possibly manage this, but why?). Be clear before you start. When does your story happen? Where does it take place? How does location effect the action of the story? Knowing these details, and working them into the narrative will help bring your world to life. If it is vague and non-specific you will struggle to maintain the interest of the reader AND you will run into the issue of inconsistency within your narrative.

Do not submit a first draft to an editor.

Just don’t. Do not do it. You may feel hugely relieved to have ‘finished’ your manuscript but unless you have undergone a process of honest and critical self-editing and revision, it is not really ‘finished’. It can take several months for an editor to work through a novel and you will be very disappointed if after going through that often costly process, your story is not ready for publishing. Editing is a necessity within the creative writing process, but there is only so much it can do. An editor cannot rewrite huge chunks of your work, and most of them won’t. An editor will not do the work for you, only so you can publish in your own name. If you want a research assistant or a ghost-writer to help, you will have to recruit and pay one. The developmental and stylistic editors’ role is to look at the work you have produced and suggest (not make) the changes they feel will improve the work. Copyediting and proofreading will only look at the clarity and clear-up typographical errors. An editor will not rewrite large chunks of your work but a good one will tell you what they like and how to improve what they don’t. Listen to their advice.

That said, there is nothing to stop you from joining a writer’s group to get feedback. Bear in mind though, many members of these groups are in the same boat as you: unpublished new authors, and they are human. I wouldn’t say to simply ‘ignore the negative comments’ or dismiss constructive critique as merely ‘negativity’ from competing authors. This feedback can be very valuable. It can point you in a direction you had not originally thought of taking your narrative, or give you other ideas which help drive your story. If you take this advice, do remember who offered it in the acknowledgements. It’s only polite.

Look what came in the post this morning!

by | Oct 8, 2016 | Courses, Uncategorized

Since 2011, while looking after my three delightful [read as you deem most appropriate] children (7, 5 and 3), I have been studying with the Open University. Today I got my certificate. It’s kind of a weird feeling actually. While it marks the end of five years of extremely hard work, it also marks the beginning of something. What that something is, is not quite what I had initially intended because I needed a better degree than this to take that road. I would be lying if I said I was not disappointed, but the world is full of disappointed graduates and I am not prepared to let my efforts, thus far, go to waste, or let others set horizons of my ability anymore.

My certificate!

Courses (Part 2)

by | Oct 5, 2016 | Blog, Courses

Okay, make that four online courses. Queue the statement “My name is Anna, and I am a study addict.” Why have I done this? Simply put, to make me better equipped at helping the authors who come to me for my services. I digress.

Harry DeWulf has very generously given me a voucher to take his Read Worthy Fiction Course (and inadvertently enabled my addiction to self driven distance study). I’m currently listening to the audio files for the first two lessons and madly jotting down ideas for my first 500 words. In keeping with the theme of the course, I intend to publish my finished article but I am undecided about how. I am considering an episodic approach to publishing. Right here on this blog. I have (probably unwisely) decided to allow my readers have a say on this.

[polldaddy poll=9542330]

I should probably go away now and consider what I have actually let myself in for…

Additional information.

Harry Dewulf can be found on Twitter @densewords.
The Read Worthy Fiction Course is available via Udemy.com and normally costs £95. I have placed a link to his website in the sidebar of my main website but you can find links to his courses here. I highly recommend his advice.