Punching it up

I’m working on a romantic suspense proposal. I’d love to say it’s a new proposal, but I’m slow as always. At any rate, I’m getting it down on paper. The problem was, what I got on the paper was just lying there.

No life. No snap. No pizzazz. It needed desperately to be punched up.

To be fair, the heroine’s mother commits suicide at the beginning of the book so she’s not exactly feeling funny and witty. Still . . .

I went over it a few times and nothing was really coming to me and then I remembered the workshop on deep editing I went to last spring with Margie Lawson. I pulled out my notes went back to work and, oh my gosh, what a difference!

As I  focused on the words as much as the characters’ emotions and actions, the text started to come alive. It was almost there. Almost. It just needed that little (or not so little) shove to make it lively on the page. I can’t tell you how satisfying it was.

So often I get so caught up in getting the story right, getting the emotion right, getting the setting right that I forget my best tool: words.

So let’s hear it for words!