Advice: Avoiding Action Lists
Anonymous asked:
Hey, thank you so much for this blog! I really appreciate it! My problem when I’m writing is, that I tend to “list” things my characters do, so it seems kind of mechanical. Do you have advice on how to deal with that without making it too touchy-feely?When you imagine a scene, you don’t have to relay what the character is doing movement by moment. Think about what’s important for the reader to be able to visualize what you’re imagining. If your character takes a drink, I don’t need to know that she put her hands around the cup, raised the glass to her lips, tilted her head back, let the drink pour into her mouth, swallowed, put the cup down, and let it go. That’s just a laundry list of unnecessary actions. It’s sufficient to just say, “Clara lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip.” Everything else is implied.
The same is true when it comes to a string of actions, like waking up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and walking to the bus stop. You could just say, “Clara woke up early and was dressed and out the door as soon as she finished breakfast. The bus was late as usual, but she made it to math class just before the bell rang.” This is much more interesting than, “Clara woke up. Then she got out of bed. Then she took a shower. After that she got dressed. Then she went downstairs to eat breakfast. She had toast…” which is monotonous and choppy, and tells us much more than we need to know. ;)
