Writing style - tips to share

[Barbara]

Not sure if it's actually a writing tip, but here's my process... http://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com...

[M.T.]

Love your blog name Barbara although I can't qutie contain my jealousey at anyone who has whole days to write. Ah if only.

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm
Unlucky Dip Prequel to Few Are Chosen
FREE on Amazon.co.uk

[Barbara]

MTM wrote: "Love your blog name Barbara although I can't qutie contain my jealousey at anyone who has whole days to write. Ah if only."
I think it's a matter of choices... I do have some sparks of jealousy for writers who mention a significant other backing them! ;-) Never had that... but then, might find him some day...
Keep writing! :-)

[Justin]

I write poetry, which on its own can have many many styles to write in..however not only in just poetry does my tip come in useful but to regular writing in general..try different styles, change it up every once in a while but also stay with what your used to and most comfortable with..if u write a certain way then stick with it, its best to change it up once in a while not for others but for yourself so u dont get bored and you expand ur writing.

[Amy Eye]

I think that switching your style up is a very good idea. Not only can you possibly learn something new about yourself and your own writing, you may learn that you have talents in other areas!

Keeping the boredom at bay is always a plus too. Never want to get bored with writing.

[M.T.]

Hmm... I suppose I'm so busy trying to get my own style write that I'm disinclined to try others... Well... until I've nailed one!

Cheers

MTM

[Justin]

Its always good to stay true to writing how your used to cause others will come to love your work but also changing it up may draw in a new crowd of people and those who already like your regular writing style will love your new style even more.

[M.T.]

Mmm... I can see the appeal, later though when the main brand is a bit more pointy.

[Keryl]

My writing process goes something like this:

Come up with idea. This is often a scene, a line or two of dialog, an image, something.

Let it sit in the back of the mind until I've got some sort of story arc with a defined ending. Nothing gets written until I know what the end game is. I may not stick with that ending, but it's got to be there before I go further.

Then I start writing. I call this the 'plot dump' phase. I drop as many ideas, scenes, and bits of dialog on the page as I can. It's in no particular order, and a lot of it will never see the light of day in the finished version.

Once I've got every plot dump bit in my head down, I start to arrange them, and then outline the bits that connect what I've got down. As I keep writing, new bits will occur and they'll get added to the "outline."

From this point, I'll hop about filling in bits as they come to me. Some days I'll write mostly new stuff. Others I'll spend polishing the already written bits.

Eventually every piece of the 'outline' is filled in.

At that point the story goes into hibernation mode for at least a month while I go do something else. I need to get away from the story, so when I go back to it I can see what I really wrote.

When I come back to it, the first step is to read and make notes.

Then I begin the great re-write. This usually involves things like putting visual cues in. (I'm a terrible visual processor. I think in words, so I tend to have long passages of disembodied dialog where the reader has nothing but conversation to fill the page.) I fill in the holes I noticed on the re-read, and deal with any issues that jumped up. And make sure all my POV work is correct.

Then it goes to the beta readers. They send it back with their notes, and I pay attention to what they said.

More fixing things up.

Off to the editor.

More fixing things up.

Then comes the long slog of nitpicking. Did I use the word toward 17k times in the story? How many times do I have said in a row? My characters rarely snap or quip, but they do have a tendency to answer, remark, reply, etc. I hate seeing a five or six saids in a row on a page.

I check and double check each comma, period, coordinating conjunction, prepositional phrase, semi colon, and on and on making sure they are all correctly punctuated.

And often, while I'm doing this, I keep tweaking sentences, looking for stronger verbs, cutting out extraneous words.

And then it gets another rest, and I do it one more time.

This is probably why I'm a slow writer when it comes to producing books.

I'm loving this topic, and seeing lots of other bits I want to comment on, so hopefully you'll forgive a bunch of my comments in a row.

[Keryl]

Sarah R. Yoffa wrote: "One of the "style" tips or comments I've seen a lot relates to something I've always done, pretty much most of my life. I've been writing since I was 9. I'm now 50, almost 51. I probably started do..."

Annoyance at choreographed dialog tends to boggle me as well.

I get wanting a clean minimalist style. And there are plenty of times where I've seen the atrocity of dialog tags being used to convey the tone of the conversation, rather than the conversation itself.

But still... If you write a lot of dialog (especially with more than two people) it's possible to end up with ten or more dialog tags on a page, and that's a ton of said in a row. It looks clunky. It sounds repetitive.

Personally, I like to split the middle, make sure the dialog tells the reader how the characters are saying things, and then use actions to give the reader an idea of who is saying what. (With a good helping of saids as well.)

[Keryl]

C.D. wrote: "Cassie wrote: "I also read everything out loud!! And, it always helps for me to leave things for a while then come back to them with fresh eyes. Probably not three months, but long enough for me ..."

One thing I've found, especially if you dislike the sound of your own voice, is that you can listen to your work on your kindle. Yes, you've got to get it into a .mobi format, but once you do, you can set it to Text To Speech, and listen away.

TTS has a sort of mechanical sound to it. It's very obviously not a person reading, and to me that makes it even easier to hear the mistakes.

[Keryl]

C.D. wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Here's another one for finding "bad" choreography. Actually stand up and try to act out the..."

I also do this. My husband is often my guinea pig when I need a second person, especi..."

I also do this. My husband is often my guinea pig when I need a second person, especially a taller person. Sometimes you just need to make sure the action is feasible. More often than not though, I'm working out gestures.

There's a joke in here regarding the fact that I write steamy romance, but it's going to go unsaid... : )

So glad you do that!

I don't want to even think about how many romances I've read where the Hero needs at the very least an extra hand and an anti-gravity field to get into the position he's supposed to be in.

I have a feeling a lot of writers aren't so much paying attention to what the words actually say as to how they sound together. And that's fine, if you're a poet. But we're novelists, so our words have to do more than sound pretty.

[M.T.]

Keryl, that's very similar to the way I write, except I am not as aware of the process as you... and as I'm a stay at home parent there are glaciers which move faster than progress on my books.

I also use text to speech on Kindle. I like to have the voice of Stephen Hawkin reading my book to me and I find it's brilliant for punctuation, repeated words and also my horrendous tendency to just drop half the words in a sentence. That comes up too.

I find I spend hours writing the same sentence again and again until I've explained what's happening with words and a rhythm that I like. I've been two years on the sequel to Few Are Chosen now and I had 60,000 words in the bag before I started...

Cheers


MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm
Unlucky Dip Prequel to Few Are Chosen
FREE on Amazon.co.uk

[Keryl]

MTM wrote: "Keryl, that's very similar to the way I write, except I am not as aware of the process as you... and as I'm a stay at home parent there are glaciers which move faster than progress on my books.

I ..."

I'm a stay-at-home parent as well. Nap time is my favorite time of day.

[C.S. Splitter]

Here's one I read recently:

An article said that two spaces after a period ending a sentence is archaic and born from the type writer days.

What? When did one space become the norm? Did I miss something?

Splitter

[Sabine]

Hi. I am running a blog as a Writing and Publishing Resource for new writers. I write about writing and publishing process, and sometimes things that strike me as interesting. If anyone is interested, please check it at www.sabineareed.com

[Keryl]

C.S. Splitter wrote: "Here's one I read recently:

An article said that two spaces after a period ending a sentence is archaic and born from the type writer days.

What? When did one space become the norm? Did I miss..."

I've been seeing it more and more recently. (Say the last six years.)

Even so, I've kept it up. It's clearer, easier to read, and even in a 260k word novel, it only saves six pages. I'd rather pay nine more cents a print novel and have it be easier to read than get rid of it.

[J.A.]

Splitter I heard that and ignored it. I like the readability too!
JAC

[M.T.]

Splitter and JAC, I heard it and did what the Editor told me. That said, I think it depends on the font you use as I find it OK to read in my own work, which I didn't expect.

Cheers

MTM

[M.T.]

Keryl, cool! You wait until the naps end! Mwah ha ha haaargh.

Cheers

MTM

[Keryl]

MTM wrote: "Keryl, cool! You wait until the naps end! Mwah ha ha haaargh.

Cheers

MTM"

MTM

Oh, I know about the end of naptime. Baby 1 stopped napping at two and a half. Baby 2, who is almost three now, is still at it, and Baby 1 is now in kindergarten. For the first time in 2 years I've got my afternoons back!

[M.T.]

Ah I can imagine how good that feels.

Mini Man has just started pre-school so he does 3 whole days now. He is lovely but he is very active and even for a 3 year old, he has the attention span of a gnat on acid, the only thing that will keep him in one place for more than about 10 seconds is TV. As a result, he watches it too much.

I nearly went mental over the summer. He dropped his sleep the first day of the holidays, was tired and ratty and irritable, we potty trained, had chicken pox. It was evil.

So, if I did manage to make a second the newby would go to nursery two full days a week from the age of 6 months. I just don't have the stamina to do it full-time without any outside help. I think the most horrible time of my life was looking after the wee man when I had the noro virus and he didn't. There is no-one else (although luckily McOther was off work with it too) so I just had to lie on the sofa in a stupor. Then I'd throw up, McOther would hear and come down to take my place in the sofa stupor spot and I'd got upstairs to bed... until I heard him throw up and came down... and so on and so on.

That said junior took 12 years to make so I doubt there's a sequel of that sort in the offing even if I've produced one for the book!

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm
Unlucky Dip Prequel to Few Are Chosen
FREE on Amazon.co.uk

[Keryl]

MTM wrote: "Ah I can imagine how good that feels.

Mini Man has just started pre-school so he does 3 whole days now. He is lovely but he is very active and even for a 3 year old, he has the attention span of ..."

Sick with baby and hubby. Been there, done that, and don't want to go back. Not fun at all.

Just think in a few years, we'll both have eightish hours a day to work on our writing. Ahhh... productivity!

[M.T.]

Mwah ha ha haaargh! Oh yeh. I love being a Mum and my boy is a constant delight to both of his parents but writing is a drug and I know I am a very much better Mum now that I'm getting a regular fix.

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm
Unlucky Dip Prequel to Few Are Chosen
FREE on Amazon.co.uk

[Sabine]

MTM wrote: "Mwah ha ha haaargh! Oh yeh. I love being a Mum and my boy is a constant delight to both of his parents but writing is a drug and I know I am a very much better Mum now that I'm getting a regular fi..."

I agree MTM...no matter how much we do for our kids, it's important to do something for ourselves. I've two kids, a boy and a girl, and believe me, they keep me busy but it's important for me to take time out to write and read everyday.

[Justin]

I sometimes choose a title before I write the poem, this however isn't good unless you have a general idea of what u wanna write about, but I dont always choose the obvious and go in a total different direction which reacts very well.
Another thing to take in is that even if you have lots of thoughts and ideas for a writing but they are jumbled write em all down anyway and pick threw the process as you go along, re work it until your satisfied.

[Phil]

C.S. Splitter wrote: "Here's one I read recently:

An article said that two spaces after a period ending a sentence is archaic and born from the type writer days.

What? When did one space become the norm? Did I miss..."

It might be archaic, but I still think it makes sense. When I was taught touch typing many years ago that was the norm. I still think it looks better, but that might just be the training. Hitting the space bar twice with your right thumb isn't really so difficult.

But my first mentor in the art of writing, a retired editor from a major publishing house, drummed me that publishers require only a single space.

Better or worse seems irrelevant, if that's what it takes.

[C.S. Splitter]

That is so disturbing....not knowing for sure on something so basic will drive me nuts lol

Splitter

[M.T.]

OK, Splitter, then this'll also do your head in.

Quotation marks; I've always thought you used double quotes " for speech and single quotes ' for quotes in the text, or someone quoting someone else's words. However, I gather it's often done the other way round now. I checked a recent Pratchett and found that yes, indeed, all the speech is marked with single quotes.

I've kept mine double.

Cheers

MTM

[C.S. Splitter]

Yeah, MTM, the Malazan books are written like that. It drove me nuts to read. I think it is a terrible thing but if the author/editor is consistent, it is readable.

The other thing that drives me nuts when writing is speech tags. We all understand: "Go away," he said.

But, you really can't say: "Go away," he chortled.

My understanding is that the latter would more properly be written: "Go away." He chortled.

Because you can't 'chortle' something. You can say it, shout it, whisper it, but you can't chortle or laugh it.

I don't always stick to that.

Splitter

[M.T.]

Oh blimey, just reading that does my head in!

I hear you about the chortling thing. I tend to do it the way you do or use 'said'

Cheers

MTM

[Keryl]

MTM wrote: "OK, Splitter, then this'll also do your head in.

Quotation marks; I've always thought you used double quotes " for speech and single quotes ' for quotes in the text, or someone quoting someone els..."

Nah, don't worry your pretty little head on this one. It's just the difference between Brit English and American English. Just like having a u in colour. It's not a change in how things are done, it's just a sign of the world getting smaller.

[Keryl]

C.S. Splitter wrote: "Yeah, MTM, the Malazan books are written like that. It drove me nuts to read. I think it is a terrible thing but if the author/editor is consistent, it is readable.

The other thing that drives m..."

You're right.

"Bloody hell," he said/yelled/asked/screamed/answered/quipped/replied.

Not "Bloody hell," he laughed.

Unless it's one of the above, it needs a period and a new sentence.

[Phil]

MTM wrote: "OK, Splitter, then this'll also do your head in.

Quotation marks; I've always thought you used double quotes " for speech and single quotes ' for quotes in the text, or someone quoting someone els..."

I've noticed the change in usage of quotation marks, too. The only logical I reason I can think of is that it's the bright idea of some efficiency expert. To use double quotation marks, you have an extra key-stroke, depressing the Shift Key while you you hit the other. On the other hand, looking at it as a sequence, it makes some sense to use first one mark, ' before using the double, ".

This is all whistling in the dark, I've no real idea why it was changed.

[M.T.]

I've got to giggle in a distinctly low brow way at another US/UK difference. Here in the UK it's a full stop. A period is something ladies get once a month phnark... The last taboo. Sorry. I know I'm vile.

Cheers

MTM

[Sarah]

MTM wrote: "I've got to giggle in a distinctly low brow way at another US/UK difference. Here in the UK it's a full stop. A period is something ladies get once a month phnark... The last taboo. Sorry. I know I..."

I know this and yet I still giggle. I think I really am a child sometimes. Then again, I shock the hell out of a lot of people just talking about bodily functions as though it's perfectly normal everyday conversation.

Ahhh...the illness that is called being a romance novelist!

[Sarah]

Splitter and all others laughing at the "Saidisms" will enjoy this. I was just chatting last night on one of my Twitter IDs (I honestly can't remember which one now) with another writer who'd never heard the term "saidism" and she'd never read the source document from whence it sprang--to wit, the SFWA's Turkey City Lexicon.

The SFWA = Science Fiction Writers of America, a kind of useless organization all of us SciFi writers aspire to join just to say we're members, not for anything important to our careers ;-)

I was reading through some of this, which I haven't read in years, and laughed so hard I started crying. It's just too funny. There aren't too many Americanisms either. It's really just quirks prominent in the science fiction and fantasy genres, though I think today's fantasy is called horror and paranormal while still actually BEING fantasy genre. Amazing how useless the labels are in truth, just another marketing tactic. Useful tactic but marketing tactic nonethless.

"Fantasy" genre is defined as any story which does not adhere to the physical laws of the real universe in which we actually exist.

Oh and I should note that "hand waving" is more commonly referred to as "waving a magic chicken over the keyboard." It's a term (and practice) which originates in software development when there is something wrong and you have no clue what or how to fix it even if you CAN identify it but then "magically" it's all better and you claim you just waved a magic chicken over the keyboard because you're too lazy to actually debug the code and document what happened.

[Richard]

C.S. Splitter wrote: "Yeah, MTM, the Malazan books are written like that. It drove me nuts to read. I think it is a terrible thing but if the author/editor is consistent, it is readable.

The other thing that drives m..."

Hey Splitter,

Thanks for that insight. I actually had no idea that the proper structure was "That's a riot." He laughed. I'm in the editing process of a novel and I guarantee that I'm guilty of using a comma with laughed/chortled/snickered.

This is why I love GR. Plenty of great information being shared.

Rich

[C.S. Splitter]

I know some of you that read my posts think this guy must have compromising pictures of me from my brief foray in the mullet world in '87 because I shill for him so often, but writers should be reading his blog.

Here is a WONDERFUL post he did a while back on dialogue: http://riyria.blogspot.com/2011/08/wr...

Michael J, Sullivan is an indie that "made it" and now he helps out where he can. He has "been there, done that" and shares what he has found along the way. I find his writing advice VERY helpful.

His wife owns a publishing company and also writes a GREAT blog: http://write2publish.blogspot.com . Now if I could only get my wife to read her blog and follow in her footsteps lol.

Splitter

[M.T.]

That's great, except that I do the "Who that?" Jane said, "Nobody." all the time although, to be honest, where I do it, it's because I find it clearer.

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm
Unlucky Dip Prequel to Few Are Chosen
Not free any more, I'm afraid, on Amazon.co.uk

[Richard]

I followed Splitter's link and checked out Michael's Writing Advice. That stuff is friggin' gold! I sent him a message and told him so. I love the fact he doesn't jam the rules down your throat like they're the 10 commandments, but instead presents them as general guidelines that can be crossed if appropriate.

Rich

[Chris]

I cover a lot of writing advice on my blog. My post today was "What Can You Learn from Revisions?"

I've been editing a novel, using lessons from script writing, and learned a few things about my character and my writing. You can read the whole post on my blog, but here's an excerpt:

For this novel, at this stage of revisions, following Doug’s advice about plotting structure just means noticing and emphasizing certain points. For example, he discusses the Midpoint. In a movie with a happy ending, the Midpoint echoes that ending with a moment of seeming success (to be followed by a major setback and Moment of Apparent Failure at the Act 2 Break).

I looked over my plot outline and saw that I had good midpoints for both the action plot and the romance, conveniently in consecutive chapters close to the middle of the novel. I could emphasize these successes by having Kiley acknowledge them more.

chriseboch.blogspot.com

[M.T.]

That's interesting. Left to our own devices I think there's a natural way humans present a story and I think that's a key thing. Have you read the writers' journey by Christopher Vogler. It's very interesting. The basic premise is there are certain things that a human needs in a story for it to be fullfilling. I'm not sure it's 100% true but there's a lot of interesting stuff in there.

Cheers

MTM

[Jenn]

J.A. wrote: "Yep, I can't listen to audio books either - but part of it is that the pictures they make in my head aren't as good as my own imaginings of things!
And there's nothing worse than when one of your ..."

Totally!

[Richard]

C.S. Splitter wrote: "Yeah, MTM, the Malazan books are written like that. It drove me nuts to read. I think it is a terrible thing but if the author/editor is consistent, it is readable.

The other thing that drives m..."

Strange we were talking about this. The laughed/chortled mistake isn't even immune to the most commercially successful writers. Dare I mention that this line- "Little tykes," chortled Mr. Dursley - comes from page number two of Harry Potter and the Socerers Stone.

If Amy's following this thread, hopefully she won't hold this against me.

[Phil]

Rich wrote: "C.S. Splitter wrote: "Yeah, MTM, the Malazan books are written like that. It drove me nuts to read. I think it is a terrible thing but if the author/editor is consistent, it is readable.

The o..."

Wasn't that her first book? Maybe that explains it.

[Chris]

As for laughing/chortling/sighing dialog, I always advise my students against it, because I know some people are super sensitive -- though others won't notice. It's probably possible to simultaneously do one of those actions with very short dialogue --

"No way!" he laughed.
"No," she sighed.

But the longer the line of dialogue, the more impossible it starts to sound --

"I don't really think that's possible given the circumstances," he sighed.

You'd need a big breath of air for that one!

Also, someone mentioned a while back the single space/double space after a period question, and I'm not sure it got answered. Back in the days of typewriters, you used two spaces because it helped visually separate the sentences. Now with computers, the typesetter can make a simple change to the formatting which adds exactly the amount of extra space they want.

So today, if you use two spaces after a period, a) you'll look out of date, and b) the publisher's typesetter will just have to go through and remove all those extra spaces.

But don't worry if you don't think you can retrain yourself. Fortunately, you can easily fix the problem in your final proofreading, by using Find-Replace and replacing two spaces with one. This will also catch any inadvertent extra spaces between words.

[Richard]

@Phil- I think you're correct. Page #2 of her first book so probably the first hour of her writing career. Taken in that context, it's pretty understandable.

BTW, it sounds like the sharks are pretty active this spring in Australia. I heard on the news that there have been 3 fatalities in the last two weeks. What does a guy over there have to do to take a dip in the ocean without fearing for his life?

@Chris- the only reason I noticed was because of this thread. Now every time I see laughed/chortled/sighed, I will take notice, whether I want to or not.

Thanks for the update on one space vs. two space discussion. I wasn't aware of the Find-Replace function, but I will make sure I use it before submitting anything.


Is the one space after a period also the standard with regard to submitting/formatting for ebooks?

[Keryl]

Rich wrote: "Is the one space after a period also the standard with regard to submitting/formatting for ebooks?"

Not sure if it's standard or not, but when I see the one space break, it does look bad to me.

However, I just pulled a half dozen random print books off my shelf, and all of them have one space between the period and the next sentence.

So there's one more new change to my print version.

[C.S. Splitter]

Oh, craptastic. Now I have to do TWO versions; one for print and one for ebook.

I hate you all :)

Splitter