Neal F. Litherland's Blog: Notes From the Editor's Desk

Where is Notes From The Editor's Desk Now?

So, it's been a long time since I've updated this blog, and for good reason; I've opened a different one elsewhere. For those who have read Notes From the Editor's Desk and enjoyed it, it is now a regular feature on my blog The Literary Mercenary.

If you'd like more updates about me, my work, and what I'm up to, please feel free to stop on by.

Editor's Desk #4: The "And Then" Bird

Stories, like animals, all have their unique features and identifiers. The stalking panther of horror, creating dread before it pounces. The peacock of literary romance, displaying skill and pride while wooing the plainer hens. Even the pachyderms of fantasy, trumpeting their charges as they cut epic swaths of territory are a sight to behold in full stride.

However, not all tales deserve totemic honor, due to defects of character, lack of skill or just bad genetics. A particularly invasive species is the irritating, commonplace "and then" bird. Often found pecking through the musky undergrowth of erotica and strutting behind romance, imitating the more skilled steps of its betters, this bird tends to trip over its own feet because it's so enthusiastic about telling you what it did and in what order it did it.

Metaphors aside, "and then" is a term that you can pretty much cut out of any manuscript unless it's in your dialogue. For pacing all it does it eat up space and make your text sound like it's out of breath. Also, chances are that your reader is assuming things are happening in the order that you're telling them. If that order is different, then you might want to re-structure the telling to make it as smooth as possible.

The other problem with the "and then" story is that the words don't actually need to be present for the story to take on the aspect of this obnoxious magpie. Just look at your text. If you do nothing but give a blow by blow account of everything that happens, you're telling a story the same way an overexcited 14 year old would tell his friends about how he made out with an older cheerleader. What you end up with is a rushed account of events that, while the facts are all there, lacks any style.

Pacing is the element that the "and then" bird never has. Whether it's because the writer's too excited to get to the end, or because this mysterious person doesn't know how to take time to draw out the tale, the surest way to lose an audience's interest is give them a rapid fire "and then." If you actually write out those words five, six or ten times in a paragraph, readers might hunt you down and beat you with what you created in hopes that it will teach you about proper pacing.

Editor's Desk #3: Blithely Digging Your Grave With Adverbs

For those of you that are having trouble remembering what grade school was like, or who never really enjoyed "Mad Libs," adverbs are those words that end in -ly. You know, words like cutely, quickly, sexily, or any other inbred member of the -ly clan. Seriously, adverbs are like zombies, they get a single taste of a verb and pretty soon it's stumbling around with unnecessary letters at the end of it.

For those who didn't catch the subtle lead up, today's hint for the aspiring author is to avoid using adverbs at all costs. An adverb is kind of like a stimulant. When used sparingly, it can inject a quick punch into a sentence or a scene. However, if you use adverbs all the time, then it's kind of like drinking coffee laced with cocaine, Pretty soon you won't be able to go on without doing that regularly, because it's habit forming.

Adverbs are, by and large, spice for your literary stew. Not every sentence needs an adverb, and not every character needs to have them. And, as the great sage and eminent junkie Stephen King said repeatedly in his book On Writing, adverbs are little darlings that you, as the writer, may need to drown in editorial creek.

Pick up any book, no matter how popular it is or how much money it's made, and compare how many unnecessary adverbs it uses to how well regarded it is by critics. And indeed, by the writing community overall. Books like the infamous "Twilight" series and its spawn "50 Shades of Gray" are big offenders in adding unnecessary adverbs. And while writers the world over would love that kind of success, this is not one area to compromise your skillset with.

Now, all of that said, not all adverbs are bad. In fact, when used properly, adverbs are like salt; they make a decent egg into a great breakfast. But look at the adverbs you're thinking about using before you add them into the pot. Is that character really moving fast enough for you to say quickly? If you've already given us a description of the freckle faced darling with the big sucker, do we need to say that she smiled cutely? Your story is like a cow, and if you don't cut the fat during the butchering that is the editorial process, rest assured that someone on down the line will take a knife to all those adverbs your story can do without.

Notes From the Editor's Desk #2: What's in a Name?

Have you ever been reading a book, and at some point THAT question has occurred to you? That one, all-important question that is like the cape test for a Superman casting. That question is, of course, "Who the F%&K names their child that?"

Whether you're James Bond, Conan the Barbarian or Tarzan Earl of Graystoke, your name as a character is more than just a convenient handle to designate you as a person we as the audience need to watch. Names have meaning, personality and connotation, and all of that will be communicated to your audience. A name is that first impression that you never, ever get to redo, and it can make or break your story.

Give you a good example without naming names (because on the Internet, who the hell has a real name anyway?). I was discussing this very issue with someone who wanted to name the female lead of a grand, epic war story Loki. Points for originality and breaking down gender barriers by taking the name of a trickster god and giving it to a female lead who will apparently be ploughing furrows with dead soldiers and watering crops with their blood. But, and this is the really important question here, WHY?

There is more why in this one decision then my brain really has room for, but I'll point out some of the obvious ones. Why would you take a male name and give it to a female character? Why take a name from Norse mythology, especially when (it was later revealed) there are no other Scandinavian names in the story, much less Norse deity names. Why choose the name of a trickster god instead of, say, the goddess of death? Or battle? Those were all the ones I managed to get out before my brain overheated and I had to go watch Yahtzee for a while. For those of you who don't know who Yahtzee Croshaw is, shame upon you and go read this review here.

The point here is that a name is your first opportunity to completely lose your audience's interest. Readers like names that are believable, that fit the genre and (here's the most important one) aren't obviously ripped off of something without explanation.

I'll give you an example. When I saw a contest that asked me to write a, "post-apocalyptic romance with a happy ending" I accepted that challenge and penned a tale called "Heart of the Myrmidon." The main character is named Pollux, which, for those who don't know, is a reference to the myth of Pollux and Castor who were great warriors and brothers. Pollux, however, was immortal whereas Castor, in many myths, was not.

So, at first glance, it looks like I just broke my own cardinal rule. Ah ha, but here's where the critical thing for non-sensical or bizarre names comes in... backstory! You see, in this tale, Pollux is one of a defunct set of experimental soldiers called Myrmidon (another Greek reference for those who see where this is going). They had no mothers, and thus they were named by scientists. All myrmidons have only a first name, and those first names are taken from Greek myth. Other characters (whom I hope to explore in the novel, which I'd like to write based off of this short tale) include brethren myrmidon named Castor and Helen, and the police/military force of this futuristic, dystopian world are referred to as Spartans. So you see, in this context, the name makes sense. But if he was the only one wandering around talking to Dick, Jane and Steve? The audience would close the book, pick up their vastly distended belief and look for something to repair the tear in it.

That's the key that all character names have to have: context. Even characters that have completely bizarro names (like Bizarro for instance) must have some explanation of why their names are so out of place, context or era. It doesn't even have to be a complicated explanation. Ever heard of Norville Rogers? You know, that famous character on that one amazingly popular show that has achieved international success? No? Well, that's because his pretentious name was changed to "Shaggy" by his friends. Given that he was hanging around with Fred, Daphne and Velma, we might have managed to get away with Norville... but to keep him as a simple, every-man character, we just gave him a nickname.

See? It isn't hard to make names good, solid and believable at all.

However, names also have connotation and personality that authors need to be aware of. Short, curt names with hard consonants (like Kurt, for instance) have a strong, masculine sound to them. Even when they're given to female characters, that impression lingers. Longer, more flowing names (and particularly names from Romance languages) tend to be viewed as softer or more feminine. Pete is that guy with the broad shoulders that plays left tackle and eats red meat. Pierre is that guy who smokes ultra-thins, knows how to make good quiche, and can wear a beret and scarf un-ironically.

There's a lot there you can play with too, if you really want to. However, and this is a habit that I've already admitted to, names can also give you an insight to aspects of your character. Before I ever acknowledged the raw physical size or military background of Pollux, people who know that myth already have an image of a strong, masculine warrior in their head. The same would have been true if I'd named him Thor. Or Clint. Comic books do this all the time. Ever take a look at some of these handles? The guy who metamorphosizes into a biker on a hell chopper with a flaming skull for a head is named Johnny Blaze? Seriously? The guy who ends up leaving a career in neurosurgery to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world is actually named Stephen Strange? And let me make sure I saw this right, the ruler of the most dangerous and fascist country in the world went to college for a doctorate and enrolled under the name Victor Von Doom?

Context, once again. You could take the implications you get with any of those names and work with it to create a new and unique character. But if you suddenly want to take someone named Alfred Pennyworth and make him into some kind of super-spy badass instead of a formal British butler, then you're going to have a lot of work ahead of you.

... what do you mean someone did that already?

Editor's Desk #1: Passing on the Passive Voice

We now begin with the first ever installment of "Notes From the Editor's Desk," a place where we can confess our literary sins and receive appropriately scathing remarks for them. And today we're going to come out swinging, starting with the passive voice.

For those that aren't entirely sure what the passive voice is (there's a disturbing number of people that think they're novelists who did terribly in English class), it's when your subject is being acted upon, rather than doing the acting. For a concrete example, examine the following phrase.

"The whining writer was punched in the face by his editor."

That is passive. Your subject (the writer) is being acted upon. A better way to do this would be to say;

"The editor sunk a fist in the writer's guts, silencing his complaints."

Different style, sure, but the point is the same. All you have to do to avoid the passive voice is to make sure that your subject is always active. It is better to do, than to be done onto.

But what makes the passive voice so bad? Well for starters it's boring. It lacks punch, verve and it has a tendency to go wandering afield if you don't keep it on a very short and very tight leash. But worst of all the passive voice is like a middle aged prostitute; easy to slip into, and as soon as you do you're going to regret it.

Passive voice is, in short, the mark of either a bad writer or an unconfident one. It's like the phrase "this writer" or "some say," something empty that you can hide behind to duck responsibility for your own work. Active voice requires you to stand up and do, passive voice is sitting back and having done unto you. No one became a main character by sitting back and letting the world have its way... at least not in any stories worth reading.