Lady Dae Writes

Death to All Adverbs

I’m almost done going through proofreading my novel and I have to say, the proofreading is going much better than the overall editing is. But even though I hld steadfast to the rule that I should try not to use adverbs, I find them in novel anyway.

My favorites? Suddenly, abruptly, really, immediately, and finally. But when I go back through, I find the sentences actually work better without them. In order to illustrate how, let’s talk about why we writers curse adverbs anyway.

Adverbs are just a lazy way to add impact when we’re too lazy to find better verbs. But not only that, we also use them when we have perfectly suitable verbs, but don’t thing their strong enough. For example:

Alan suddenly burst into the room.

Let’s look at the verb suddenly modifies here. It modifies the word burst. When someone burst into a room, the verb implies that someone suddenly came into the room. When my sisters burst into the room, it’s always sudden and that makes the use of suddenly kind of useless here. Therefore,

Alan burst into the room.

Is sufficient to get the meaning across. Nine times out of ten, this is usually the case. Either we already have a sufficient verb or we need to find a stronger one. So since I’ve really said all I have to say on this point, I’m going to give a list of common adverbs, or at least the ones I find in my novel and some I’ve seen elsewhere that really get on my nerve.

Ran fast

Really? What other way can you run? Sure some people run faster than others, but in most cases, you can drop the fast and just use run unless you really need to get specific.

Immediately, quickly did something….

Depending on the verb, you can get rid of this one too. One of my friend loves to use the word, quickly. I quickly did this or I quickly did that. Depending on the context and if you’ve set up the right pace, we don’t need to know that it was done quickly or immediately. I especially see this in battle scenes. If you’ve already established that it’s an intense fight, we don’t need to know that someone quickly or immediately blocked a punch. How else are you going to block a punch if it’s coming at you?

Abruptly/ suddenly

These verbs are usually use in conjunction with phrases like jumped to his feet or burst into the room. So how else does someone jump to their feet or burst into a room besides suddenly or abruptly?

Evilly

I hate this one. I really do. Someone used it and I wanted to scream. Damn it, if a person is established as evil why the hell do I need to know that they smiled evilly. How else does a bad guy smile? Now if the bad guy smiles fondly or endearingly or affectionately, that’s something I need to know!

See how useless adverbs are sometimes? In some ways, most ways, you really don’t need them. That doesn’t mean don’t use them, but nine times out of ten, you don’t.

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Editing: When is Enough, Enough?

          I didn't know what I was going to talk about today as I've been preoccupied with editing my novel and editing on one of the critique forums on the internet. But it was until I saw a girl who said she was about done with her query and wanted to know which version to send out that the idea for what to write today came to me.

          I warned the writer, just like I do every writer who thinks they're done with a piece of work that while ten more people might like it, there will be at least one person who won't and except for a few revisions, she had a pretty solid query. It was much better than what she started out with, and I got a feel for her story. I thought it could get a few bites from agents. But sure enough, a few comments later someone came up with the comment that they didn't like either one, and therefore started a complete overhaul of the query again.

          I can't say it enough. If seven out of ten like it, don't worry about the other three. A writer can't satisfy everyone and a writer can't satisfy every agent. They have different opinions too.

          So when is enough enough? I've been trying to figure it out too as I go through and proofread my novel. The few published authors I communicate with online are saying that you're never truly done until your book is published on a bookshelf somewhere and you can't take it back. That's it. It's done.

          But for those of use who are at least a year or more from publication, when do we know? Well, when we starting changing things back to the way they were before, that's when you know it's time to stop.

          See, there is a fine line between under-editing and over-editing, and when you cross either line you start making sloppy mistakes or do things that don't fit. My suggestion is to pick it up and put it down no more than five or six times. That doesn't include proofreading. But our works will never be perfect and someone will always think it can be improved. So don't worry about the few that don't like it. Focus on the more that like it, if more like it.

          Think of the big names in writing. J.K. Rowling for one. Not everyone likes her book. I mean, there are seven billion people on the planet. But enough of them, definitely not the majority but enough, liked her book and bought it so that she's a billionaire now. So think of it like that.

           We'll never be able to satisfy everyone and we as writers will never be satisfied, but when we feel that we've done all we can and we can do no more because we want to revert it back, that's enough. Live with it and be done. The reader does count, but the writer does too and I think in effort to try to satisfy the readership, we writers forget that.

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Voice

When revising a novel, there seems to be a lot of question on what voice is, especially since it becomes a real concern when trying to make your novel stand out in queries and synopses.

So what is voice? Well, it’s really the way your novel sounds and not sounds in the way of literal sound, but it has a lot to do with the same thing that helps us recognize the voices of people, the rhythm, certain patterns and tones, word choices, considerations that make the characters distinct. Usually the voice of a novel is close to the voice of the MC. But we’re talking about voice in general here.

Let’s start with the easiest way to determine voice, which is by word choice. Let’s talk about word choice here. My English 1101 teacher put it like this to my class. Imagine the word stone and imagine the word rock. Picture both in your head.

Now my class imagined the word rock as something rough with rugged sharp edges, while we all said a stone was something that’s smooth, might have a little shine to it, pretty to look it, colorful. The reason we imagined it like that has everything to do with how both words sound. Rock is a rough word. It abruptly ends with the ck sound. There’s no way to drag it out. But stone is a smoother sound, especially because of the long o vowel sound the way the consonant n can drag out if you want it to. It’s a smoother sounding word that rock which conjures up different pictures in the head of a person.

It’s the same when dealing with voice in a novel. Certain words conjure up certain images and predeterminations that may or may not be true. It’s certainly not true in the real world, but the thing about fiction is that it has to make sense. Real life doesn’t.

So certain word choices and phrase are associated with different voices. For instance, the use of contractions and slang is associated with a more casual laidback person. The use of cussing is regarded with the immaturity of being a teenager, anger, bitterness, or being downright serious and ready for people to stop crapping around. The use of proper grammar, not using contractions, and calling people by their full names even when they have a nickname they prefer is associated with someone from and upper class in some novels, or of someone with a stick stuck way up their behind.

It just depends really and you’ll be amazed by how word choice and the order of phrases can make voice and that was the point I was trying to help get across to the person who asked a question about voice. It’s not just about telling a good story, but how the story comes across and voice has a lot to do with that. It can be the difference of a boring or compelling story.

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Wordiness Part Two

So the last time I talked about wordiness, it was in reference to scenes or paragraph which was what I did in my previous run-through of my novel, which is more so editing since I was taking out huge chunks. But now as I go through the simpler, less frustrating process of proofreading, I want to talk about those words and phrases that make a story wordy.

The first time I spoke about this, I didn’t go over the phrases and types of words that make a novel or any story wordy. As I’m writing this though, I’m thinking about some of the stuff I read in my Lit class, particularly the stuff that Mary Shelly’s mother wrote. Talk about a modern editor’s nightmare. It’s full of redundancy, superfluous words, and all kinds of stuff that would make me throw a book across the room, but I that was in the Seventeenth century and the woman was trying to prove a point about the intelligence of women.

In any case, repetitiveness is one of the things that can really cause a novel to be wordy. In my experience and as I was going through my novel, if you look at the beginning of your sentence and the end of your sentence, you may find redundancy. Many times it’s in those phrases like as a matter of fact, though, however, the reason, because of etc. These phrases or things that mean similar things to them or work in the way these phrases do are where I found most of my redundancies because they can be tagged at either the end or beginning of a sentence and sound good.

I also found redundancies at the end and beginning of paragraphs. I would say something at the beginning of a paragraph and then say it again at the end. That comes from writing essays where I state my topic or thesis at the beginning and then have to restate it at the end. But in novels and in short paragraphs in particular, that isn’t necessary unless you do so on purpose. But many times, you’ll find that you did it unconsciously in trying to make sure you got your point across.

Another place I found wordiness is in my verbs, particularly in the use of have, has, and had. I would say things like, She had been working all night in places where I could have easily said, She worked all night or She was working all night. No in all those forms, the way those verbs are used can change that tense or the implication of the verb just slightly. For instance had been working can mean that she worked and is still working, while She worked all night is strictly past tense. But I was using had been or had something when I could have just used the past tense or a phrase that was equally shorter. It usually made for a much smoother read.

There were also places where I described something and then said it again later. So for instance, in the beginning of my novel, I establish in some way that my character has dark brown hair. So that means I don’t have to say that she has dark brown hair again every time she runs a hand through her hair.

I also don’t constantly have to remind the reader that someone is beautiful or even waste time on telling what my character is wearing every scene unless it’s relevant to the story. So while it’s not necessary to take all those references out, you don’t need to throw it in the reader’s face either, even if it is relevant.

Also, I have to talk about the adverbs. Now I've gotten good with not using those, but I seemed to like these three words a lot: suddenly, abruptly, finally, especially when I got towards the climax and battle scenes. It's not that adverbs are bad, but they usually can be replaced with stronger verbs and if you need an adverb, try using ones that don't end in -ly. In my case, the verbs I had were just fine and needed no adverbs to help build them up. So many of them were cut and those that weren't, I might go cut anyway and find a stronger verb to help.

So this was just some of the things I observed when I was editing and that I will certainly be on the lookout for as I proofread. But no more tweaking the story thankfully. The story and structure are solid. Not to practice writing queries…

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Excerpt of Completely Edited Novel!

I finished editing it! Yahoo! I did it! I did it! It's edited. No more working on it... well, except proofreading. But the structure and story is done. All I'm going in for is looking for typos and that's it. Wanna see an excerpt? Wanna, wanna, wanna? I don't care. I'm going to post an excerpt anyway.

Laqiya paused as she knelt in front of Sakura, near the snake. The wind blew gently against the back of her neck, a stray strand of hair getting in her face.

“Why hasn’t it bitten you?” she asked.

“Laqiya!” Sakura whined loudly and the snake reared back and showed its fangs again but didn’t bite.

“See?” Laqiya asked. “It won’t bite. I don’t think…”

Everyone detected the shift, and Laqiya stood up shaking her head.

“The snake’s a warning,” she said as it dawned on her, and she looked around. “We’re in a garden…”

The snake suddenly hissed and slithered away.

“No wait,” Laqiya said about to chase after it before yelping as she stumbled backwards as thorns from the briar patch to the right of her shot at her side.

“What was that?” Isis asked.

“We’ve got to get out this garden,” Laqiya said getting back up and pulling Sakura to her feet.

“Why?”

“It’s Delsaream,” Laqiya said, “And we’re right in the middle of his-”

Adria screamed as a tree suddenly struck where she had been standing. No one had anymore arguments at that point and scrambled in various directions to get away from the offending plants.

“Stay together!” Nightshield yelled.

“Too late for that,” Laqiya yelled. Everyone had already shot off in different directions.

The problem was, that nowhere in the garden was safe. Everything from the grass, to the vines and the roots of the trees were springing to life.

“Maybe if we sit still and don’t move, it’ll stop,” Sakura suggested.

“You’ve been reading too many fantasy books Sakura,” Adria yelled as she tried to at least press herself against the wall of the castle.

“You have a better idea!” Sakura yelled.

“Yes,” Laqiya said. “Find Delsaream. He’s doing this.”

“Easier said than done,” Nightshield said as she and Plainshield joined Adria against the wall, virtually useless against the plants.

“Wait a minute,” Laqiya said noticing that she hadn’t heard a complaint from Chasity Pearl yet. She looked up to see Chasity above the chaos in the sky, periodically shooting a plant or thick branch with her arrows.

“Chasity!” Laqiya yelled. “Can you find Delsaream from up there?”

“Already tried. He has to be using some kind of camouflage!”

Laqiya started to say something else before sensing something and shouting, “Chasity watch out.”

One of the briar patches straightened up and shot thorns into the air after her warning, striking Chasity Pearl in her wing. Now unable to stay airborne, she fell to the ground, letting out an expletive as she crashed.

“Got anymore ideas?” Isis asked trying to get out the patch of pansies attacking her feet.

Laqiya looked around the garden to the castle and to her luck and everlasting gratefulness, saw a balcony overlooking the garden. It was pretty far but…

“Chasity! The balcony!” Laqiya yelled pointing to it.

“That doesn’t help you all.”

“I have an idea, but you have to help them,” Laqiya said as she looked at the nearest tree.

She ran behind it, and sensing its target in the other direction, it began trying to change the direction of its attack.

“Earth!” Laqiya said to stop the attack. It was certainly a struggle though. Not only was she trying to keep a lock on her abilities, but fight against someone else’s.

“Come on,” Laqiya muttered to herself looking at the balcony, willing the branches of the tree to twist and braid themselves together to form a bridge to connect it.

Delsaream, wherever he was, seemed to figure out what Laqiya was doing and the assault began to focus on her.

Obviously, it makes no sense out of the context. It's only five hundred words of the book so try not to make a final judgment. I'm just so glad I'm done! Now to go back and proofread. If it weren't apparent, this means I'm going to be talking about editing all week!

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Death to All Adverbs

Editing: When is Enough, Enough?

Voice

Wordiness Part Two

Excerpt of Completely Edited Novel!