Need line-editing help on a novel revision

[T.K.]

I'm working on the next draft of my next novel, hooray!

I've been given some very in-depth feedback by my content editor, but I notice she's been making some sentence-structure suggestions that seem odd to me. (I must preface by saying that I am an extreme stickler for grammar, English is my native language, and I only very rarely make grammar mistakes in my formal writing.)

Namely, she keeps wanting me to change all instances of "sit down" to just "sit". For example:

With a satisfied sigh, Miette set her carpetbag on the bed and sat down next to it

I'm not sure why I seem to prefer "sit down" as opposed to "sit" in my writing. Maybe I feel like it gives sentences a better cadence? I tried doing an Internet search to see which form is preferred in formal English, but I didn't really find anything conclusive. Most people seem to be saying that "sit down" refers to the specific action of sitting from a standing position, while just "sit" is a little more ambiguous and could mean that someone was already sitting. I also saw someone mention that "sit down" is redundant (like the phrase "advance forward"), but is it really redundant if you're trying to be specific and avoid ambiguous wording?

Could it also be a regional dialect thing? My editor is from a different part of the United States than I am, so maybe there's something obscure going on between our grammar systems that's eluding me.

Writers, what's your opinion on "sit" versus "sit down"? Is it a hard-and-fast grammar rule or just a matter of opinion and writing style?

[T.K.]

Also, what are your feelings about dialogue tags ("he said/she said")? I used to omit a lot of dialogue tags in my writing, like so:

Yonwin grimaced and turned red again. “I was only nine years old, Auntie!”

However, I eventually felt that omitting the tags made the prose kind of confusing, as I sometimes had a hard time telling who was speaking, and I felt that the jump from action to dialogue was too abrupt and ambiguous. So I made dialogue read more like this:

Yonwin grimaced and turned red again. “I was only nine years old, Auntie!" he said.

However, my editor is telling me to drop those dialogue tags because they bog down the writing flow. As a reader, I find that the opposite is true, and dialogue tags largely disappear from my conscious narrative intake while serving as bridges to smooth out the action-dialogue transition.

Opinions would be wonderful!

[T.K.]

Also, exclamation marks, what's up with that?

This editor told me that I basically have an alarming number of exclamation marks in this manuscript. But I never even noticed them until now, and no one else has seemed to either.

I did some research on the matter, and there seems to be an agreement that most publishers strongly discourage the use of exclamation marks, and most authors see them as "amateurish". On the other hand, some writers suggest that exclamation mark usage is largely a matter of personal style, and as long as you don't use them when it's blatantly inappropriate (such as when a character is not in a state of high emotion, or horror of horrors, in non-dialogue prose), there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them.

But what about when you have characters who are genuinely excitable and energetic, and it just seems wrong to replace all of their exclamation marks with periods?

Here's an example from the manuscript. The character speaking is a bubbly and enthusiastic teenage girl in a good mood.

“Wow, neat! Good job, Yonwin!”

versus

“Wow, neat. Good job, Yonwin.”

I mean, that latter line I feel has the complete opposite effect and just makes her sound sarcastic instead of genuine, which is not what I was going for with her character at all.

And then there's this dialogue, which is just riddled with exclamation marks because it's coming from an insecure teenager having a social anxiety moment:

“But these girls, they’re heroes! Famous warriors like you! I don’t know what to say to them! Especially when I can barely speak their language! Nothing’s coming out right and I sound stupid!”

versus

“But these girls, they’re heroes. Famous warriors like you. I don’t know what to say to them. Especially when I can barely speak their language. Nothing’s coming out right and I sound stupid.”

See what I mean? Taking out the exclamation marks just makes all that emotion fall as flat as a deflated balloon, I feel like.

[Stan]

T.K. wrote: "I'm working on the next draft of my next novel, hooray!

I've been given some very in-depth feedback by my content editor, but I notice she's been making some sentence-structure suggestions that se..."

Great that you're that close to finishing another novel! Congrats!

The three issues you present are not easy calls to make. If your editor is with a publishing company, they may be using company standard editing, which might be hard to work around.

Personally, your usage is fine for me. The main thing to consider, in my opinion, is whether all your characters do these things or if they are character specific. If only one bubbly character speaks in exclamation points, then that seems to be a character trait rather than a writing habit. If the former, your editor may not have picked up on that. If that is the case, you may ask for an exception to be made.

The "said" language, to me, is helpful, provided there is some variation of how it is used. There have been times that I have lost track of who is speaking in a novel because there is no indication and the characters don't have enough difference in vocabulary and formality for me to follow it. Having "he said/she said" helps in such cases. Also, if you have more than two speakers it is absolutely vital to have indicators in the text.

"Sat down" can go either way. "Sit" is a command you say to your dog, not to a human. So, I think the conjugation of the verb needs to be considered. I also think of "sit down" as being more formal. So, again, is one character using this form as a character trait or are all characters using it as a writing habit?

Just my thoughts.

[T.K.]

Stan wrote: "T.K. wrote: "I'm working on the next draft of my next novel, hooray!

I've been given some very in-depth feedback by my content editor, but I notice she's been making some sentence-structure sugges..."

Thank you so much for your input!

The editor I hired is with an independent editing group, but she mostly does work for people who are traditionally published, so I think she probably did have general standardized editing in mind. That's part of the reason why I decided to go indie, I'm not terribly fond of someone else's arbitrary rules getting in the way of my creativity. :)

What you said makes sense. The exclamation mark thing is definitely a character trait--only my very energetic and excitable characters use a lot of exclamation marks. But I also write a lot of energetic and excitable characters, so that probably drives up the exclamation mark count in many of my manuscripts. I ran a count on a selection of my more recent work, and the novel with the least amount of exclamation marks was also the most serious story with the fewest high-energy characters.

I'll give you an example of some typical multi-character dialogue:

“Although there is plenty of aether up in the arcoreae,” Miette said, “which is where we’re headed.”

“Right,” Fraa said as they departed the repair center. “I’ll book us a flight up there. There are a few dirigible lines that go between Ju-Ghy and the arcoreae. Depends on how far away any of the arcoreae are.”

“I hope one’s close,” Miette said.

“And then we can go back to enjoyin’ our holiday!” Kieri said. “I really wanna go to the beach! Fraa says it’s super fun!”

As they stepped back onto 24 Sine, Miette checked the time on her output nanorbot. “If we take the same amount of time getting back,” she said, “we should make it back to the surface for a late lunch.”

“Good,” Fraa said. “There’s a wonderful restaurant in town that makes the best spicy bean wraps.”

As you can see, there is a member of the cast who is particularly... manic. Punctuating most of her speech with periods would seem utterly foreign to her character.

Incidentally, I left a comment on one of the blog posts discussing punctuation mark usage, thanking him for his insights and explaining my viewpoints, and heard back from the author this morning. He told me that, as the article was written a few years ago, he's actually softened his viewpoint on exclamation marks a bit and is more willing to let them be a matter of personal writing style, although he still finds that beginning writers misuse and overuse them. He advised me to do what works best for me, because there's ultimately no right or wrong way to tell a story and thus no right or wrong way to punctuate it either.

So, I respect that publishers have their own in-house rules about how they want their books to look. But if I'm not willing to play by their rules, I won't be submitting manuscripts to them. I rather enjoy going off and doing my own thing anyway.

Also, I ran an experiment and replaced every exclamation mark in this manuscript with a period, and then tried to read it. I found that almost all of the emotional rhythm of the story fell totally flat; enthusiastic characters now came across as much calmer than I intended, which made them read drastically differently; and characters seemed eerily stoic when their dialogue and the situation suggested a state of high emotion, but every sentence seemed to be spoken with a level tone. I didn't like it.

So I think I will chalk the exclamation marks up to personal style, and the fact that there's just a lot of energy involved in my writing. I definitely don't use exclamation marks to try to force emotion, but I also think it's nonsensical to use punctuation that misrepresents emotion that is already present.

[T.K.]

I agree with you on "said". I can easily lose track of who is speaking in a novel as well without those dialogue tags--just being able to glance at someone's name next to a line of dialogue helps keep me on track as to who is saying what.

I also find that dialogue without a dialogue tag, in most cases, just comes across to me as too blunt, like "here is some action and now here's some dialogue!" (or vice versa) instead of one flowing smoothly into the next. But that could be personal preference, and how "said" is used (as long as it's not underused to the point of confusion) could ultimately be a matter of personal style. I've never gotten any other feedback that I use "said" too much--but I definitely read my older work and confuse myself because I used "said" too little.

It makes me think of Tolkien, who had the quirk of writing a lot of his dialogue with the dialogue first, then "said (character)", which is rather unusual in modern prose:

"Doubtless he would!" laughed Gandalf.

"No, good sir, the matter escaped him," said Merry gravely.

"And what about your companions? What about Legolas and me?" cried Gimli.

I didn't even notice Tolkien was doing this for the longest time, and when I finally did notice, it did not impact how much I enjoyed his writing. It's just the way he wrote, and for me, his writing is all the more admirable and enjoyable because it is distinctive in style.

So, as part of my style I'll choose to err on the side of overusing "said", because I dislike the jarring confusion that can come from underusing it.

I also agree that "sit down" sounds more formal. The POV character in this book is a very formal, sophisticated intellectual, and I think that comes across in the narrative prose since we're so firmly viewing the story from inside her mind. So it does make sense to me that her prose would read as more formal and technical.

Again, I really appreciate your feedback. All of this has given me a lot to think about. I learn new things with each new novel, and although I think for my next book I'll try to see if my favorite editor is available again, it's always valuable to get feedback from a variety of editors who may bring up new and interesting points to consider.

[T.K.]

Could I get opinions on a bit of character development while I'm at it?

One of the characters, Yonwin, is 15, but the editor mentions at several points that he sounds too young for his age. However, he is a very shy and insecure teenager who struggles with some social anxiety upon meeting his aunt's surrogate nieces who have already saved the world once and are like celebrities to him, while he feels super dumb and lame compared to everything they've already accomplished.

Further, Yonwin's aunt is a famous, recently-retired warrior in their society, and she's currently training him as her apprentice, which is his lifelong dream, but one he feels extremely inadequate about, despite her pep talks and his obvious natural talent. Off the battlefield, he's a very meek and reserved boy who feels like he's living in the shadow of his aunt and isn't sure if he could ever be half as good of a warrior as her. I feel like all of these personality traits combined would result in Yonwin sounding a little juvenile during times when he's not feeling too self-confident (which is quite often in the first part of the book). Does that make sense at all?

The editor also didn't like that Yonwin consistently calls his aunt "Auntie", but considering she still calls him "Yonnie", which was his nickname when he was little (and much to his chagrin), I was trying to establish that the two have a close and loving familial relationship, and despite Yonwin now being his aunt's apprentice in a profession, he still sees her as his beloved auntie, just as she still sees him as her endearing nephew. As she never had any children of her own, she's especially close to her nieces and nephews, both biological and surrogate.

I was also actually basing that a little off of Hawaiian culture, where children and teenagers often call adults in their community "Uncle" and "Auntie" even if they are not closely biologically related. I imagine Yonwin's species's culture also has tight-knit communities that involve terms of endearment that sound unusual or juvenile to modern American readers.

Plus, the author mentioned that one of the other characters, Miette, sounds unusually adult for her age (she's 15 like Yonwin), but that was intentional, as Miette is gifted, which makes her extremely intelligent and precocious. Mentally, she really is at least several years older than her biological age, so she sounds more mature than her peers because she is.

Does that make sense?