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ROAD TRIP! Movement in Writing

7/6/2012

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Picture
Currently I’m in transition. Summer means travel time for many people and us, too. We escape north to avoid the intense summer of Nevada. When I'm on a road trip these days, the destination is my main goal. 

With movement on my horizon and after talking with a couple of writers this week about necessary scenes in stories, it naturally led me to a meditation on movement in writing.

Movement propels the story forward. Anything that isn’t directly moving your story ahead may mean you are bogged down in unnecessary details. When I'm on a road trip and get side tracked due to construction or detours, it isn't moving me forward on my journey.

Many beginning writers focus on showing us every detail and making each character connect to the story. However, effective storytelling doesn’t need these details. As a reader I skip this kind of writing. As an editor, I caution writers against it. On my road trip I have a destination in mind and want to get to the next important stop.

The following fictional example of letter writing illustrates this point: I write a letter/email to a friend and say I went to dinner with John. My letter reading friend can assume I called John, decided where to meet, when to meet, who was driving, what we ordered, what the waiter said, and all these details without me spelling them out in my letter. I can then skip to the relevant information of the dinner in which John told me he planned to divorce his wife.

In the above example if I stopped and spent two pages telling how we got to dinner, something important should happen along the way to move the story forward. Perhaps I used those two pages to show John’s reluctance to talk and added tension before the big reveal. That could work. If I didn’t do that and just gave the details, the two pages can be cut.

Each scene in your story should add to either plot or characterization. Cut the chatter. You want to make your story realistic, but that does not mean real.

If you are showing character or plot elements which might not be readily apparent, but is needed background for the story’s progression down the road, keep the scene. Readers can be patient if they see little pay-offs along the way.  I am patient on my road trip if we stop for a purpose-especially if it's entertaining.

A note to pantsters: Because you didn’t plot more than a couple scenes ahead, you sometimes use filler chat as your characters tell you what happens. That is fine for your first draft, but be sure you go back and cut it in revision.

Some questions to ask: What is the objective of this scene, conversation or description? What’s the important part? Is there anything that can be cut to make it more relevant? Is this scene important to move my plot and characters forward?

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Congratulations to All NanoWriMo 2011 Participants! What's Next?

12/2/2011

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The craziness that is NanoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is finished for another year. For everyone who participated during the writing frenzy to get 50K words in thirty days, I want to offer a heartfelt congratulations. You did what many only dream about doing.

If you crossed the 50K mark, you are a winner by anyone's yardstick! Well done. Some of you may be in this boat and are thinking, "What next?" Throughout this blog I will give you some tips on the next steps of your process. Stay tuned.

If you fall in the group of writers who started with high hopes, but didn't make it over the finish line, never fear, you tried, and whether you have 2K words or 20K or more, you have more words now than you had on October 31. You did what you could. Well done. 

The Next Step

If you haven't finished your story (whether you passed the 50K mark or not) the next step is completing this draft. Conclude the story. Resist the urge to edit or revise your work at this point in your writing. As most writers will tell you, starting something is a lot easier than completion. Many writers have oodles of unfinished drafts. An unfinished draft won't go anywhere. Take what you learned about writing during the last month and keep on going.

For those who needed 50K to complete a novel--you arrived at the end of your story in 50K--the next step is to pat yourself on the back and put your work aside for a little while. Yes! You get a vacation--at least from this story. My suggestion is to start another project, short story, another novel, poem, or whatever your muse is urging you to write. You created some writing habits during Nano that you can now carry over into your writing life.

Whereever you find yourself at the beginning of December, good luck with your NEXT STEP.
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D is for Dynamic Dialogue

4/11/2011

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We talk all the time, so should dialogue be one of the easiest things to write? You'd think so, but sometimes writers struggle with making their characters' dialogue authentic.

Dialogue is an ideal place for showing in your story. When reading, the dialogue bits pop off the page and readers tend to enjoy them because they move quickly.

Some ideas to improve your dialogue:

Avoid idle chit chat: For the most part, though in real life we may do the: how are you, fine, can't believe how hot it's been, how're the kids...in writing, it becomes tedious and downright boring for the reader.

Streamline: Each line needs to add to your story somehow. The primary purpose of dialogue is to illuminate character. We see them in action by what they're saying and how they react to others. Of course, plot points are revealed through dialogue, too.

Avoid giving speeches: Or having your characters give speeches. Think about how fast you tune out when someone pontificates without you having a chance to respond. That's what your reader will do if you have a long block of speech-giving. While sometimes you need to have long stretches of speech, consider inserting interruptions, questions in order to bring that same speech to life and show your characters' traits.

Leave the grammar police behind: People don't speak in grammatically correct sentences all the time. Use contractions, fragments, and appropriate slang to bring your piece to life. Be careful with the slang though, unless you want to date your piece in the here and now (or some other era) don't overdo it.

Insert appropriate body language: Within your dialogue remember you're painting a picture for  your reader. You don't need to do a lot of action during dialogue, and you don't want to direct the scene, but you do want to give color to the scene and your characters by giving them some action while speaking.

Use speech tags: He said, she said are the best. You may have heard, they are invisible, and they are, but they give the reader a point of reference so they can keep track of the speaker. If your conversation is between two people, you don't have to put a tag after every piece of dialogue. If the reader knows who is talking from your situation and how you've crafted your characters, then you can leave the tags off.

Avoid names: Have you ever noticed we rarely use someone's name when we're talking with them directly unless we're trying to make a point or get their attention. The same should be true in your dialogue.

Avoid those adverbs: In most cases including such things like, he said ferociously is telling rather than showing. If he's being ferocious, show it. He bared his teeth. "You have no idea what you just did." - shows us, while "You have no idea what you just did," he said ferociously, tells us.

Change the topic: Keep your reader guessing by having an unexpected twist in the conversation.

Avoid the "As you know, Bob," trap. One of the characters in the conversation needs to not know the story. If they both know what's happening, then it becomes dialogue for the purpose of giving the reader information and it reads fake. Consider Sally speaking with her husband, Bob. "You know, Bob, last year when we moved from the city, everything was great for a while. Then we started farming and the storm hit and we lost the crops and the bank took the farm." (If Sally and Bob are talking to one another and went through the experience together, this is 



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Telling vs. Showing OR On with the Show!

3/29/2011

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The workshop on Show vs. Tell went very well today.
Some highlights were the questions to ask on revising telling to be more showing.

Look for long narrative passages where you've used a lot of BE verbs. (be am was were etc.)

What emotions am I trying to convey?
What senses have I used? Where can I add sensory language?
What vivid verbs can I include to add emotion?
What details are important and add to the scene?
Is there a place for dialogue to complete the picture?




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    Tamara Eaton

     is an author and editor. Her former career as an English teacher assists her to help others through editing services. She's available for workshops. See her Editing Services Page for details. Be sure to get updates by clicking the RSS feed below for continuing writing tips.

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