Hi Folks,
First, a kind of news flash: We’ve extended the 50%-off sale on fiction over at StoneThread Publishing through Tuesday, January 14. To take advantage of this excellent sale,
- Visit StoneThread Publishing to get the coupon codes for the titles you’re interested in, then
- Click any cover to go to Smashwords.
- Enter the coupon code for the book you want during checkout, and download your selected title in any ebook format (Kindle, Nook, Apple, Sony, etc.)
Thanks for your patience. đ Now on to the blog post!
I called the mistakes I listed in my previous post, The Top 7 Mistakes Writers Make, labor intensive because there is no easy way for the writer or editor to resolve them. You just have to go through the manuscript bit by bit and repair or delete them as you find them. Thatâs more than a little difficult because, of course, youâre also looking for problems in sentence and paragraph structure, misspellings, errors or misleading use in punctuation, wrong word usages, inanities, bad simile and metaphor, etc.
With all of that going on, trying to remember to watch for a narrator overstepping his bounds by using sense verbs or using past tense when past-progressive is necessary or using gave, stood, or sat as throw-away verbs is a bit much even for a professional editor. Thatâs why itâs so important for you, the writer, to learn not to make those mistakes in the first place.
This time Iâm listing a few âlesserâ mistakes. These too are fairly common and they certainly can keep a manuscript from being accepted for publication. However, as a freelance editor I donât mind these so much because theyâre fairly easy to rectify. I (or you) can use Microsoft Wordâs Find & Replace dialogue to repair or delete them quickly. (For an excellent tutorial on the invaluable Find & Replace feature, Click Here.)
He Said (or Thought) to Himself
No, he didn’t. He mumbled or muttered or whispered or said quietly or thought, but he didn’t say to himself. Don’t let the narrator write âto himself,â âto herself,â or âto themselvesâ in a tag line. Itâs inane, redundant, and just plain silly. Allow your narrator to use âto himself,â âto herself,â or âto themselvesâ only if the narrator is talking about a character having a room âall to herselfâ or a character is âkeeping to himselfâ etc.
Using âTook andâ or âReached andâ or âReached Out andâ or âReached Over andâ or âReached Across andâ (You get the idea.)
Don’t allow your narrator to say a character âtook andâ something or âreached out andâ or âreached over and.â In every case, you can lose the phrase and allow the reader to move to the meat of the action. For example,
If a characterâs lying in bed reading and âHe turned out the bedside lampâ the reader will see him reach. The narrator doesnât have to say âHe reached over (or out or across) and turned out the bedside lamp.â
She took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. (Couldn’t she have squeezed it while it was still attached to her daughter? What you want here is She squeezed her daughter’s hand.)
She took a can of air freshener and sprayed the kitchen. (She sprayed the kitchen with air freshener.)
He reached out and picked up the TV remote. (He picked up the TV remote.)
She reached over and smacked him upside the head. (She smacked him upside the head or She did what came naturally.)
To easily and quickly find and correct these, key âtookâ or âreachedâ into the Find What block of your Find and Replace dialogue box.
Beginning a Sentence with âSuddenlyâ or âInstantlyâ or âInstantaneouslyâ
Beginning a sentence with âinstantlyâ or âsuddenlyâ or anything similar is almost never a good idea. If something happens instantly, have your narrator get to it without delay so the reader can experience it. If you force the reader to read the word âinstantlyâ or âsuddenly,â it slows the reading and waters down the immediacy of the action.
Likewise, I advise against using such words even later in the sentence. Please donât try to get around this one by changing âSuddenly a shot rang outâ to âA shot suddenly rang outâ or âInstantly her eyes welled with tearsâ to âHer eyes instantly welled with tears.â
Other Misuses That Are Easy to Fix
Despite its widespread misuse because it sounds cool, “likely” is an adjective, not an adverb, and it is synonymous with “probable,” not “probably.” I cringe every time a weather guy says “It likely will rain tonight.”
Despite its widespread misuse, it’s never “try and.” It’s always “try to.” If you want to correc this one with Find & Replace, be sure to put â try and â (with spaces on both sides) in the Find What block and â try to â in the Replace With block. Otherwise, chances are youâll replace things you donât want to replace.
Try not to let your narrator use the phrase âshe (he) knew.â Instead, just omit it and see whether the sentence works just as well. Most of the time it will.
The narrator very seldom (if ever) needs to use the words “now” or “today.” Past tense is the natural voice of narrative, and both of those refer to the present.
Try to avoid phrases like âhe admitted” or “she had to admit thatâ or âhe couldnât deny that.â Such phrases answer a question that hasnât been asked. Writing âhe couldnât deny that he was jealousâ implies that someone asked him whether he was jealous. Likewise, writing âshe had to admit that blah blah blahâ implies that someone was interrogating her and she finally gave in. This is another example of the narrator over reaching.
Don’t write that a character “nodded her head yes” or “shook his head no.” When a character nods, it always means yes. When he shakes his head, it always means no.
Although itâs often misused, âwhileâ always indicates a simultaneous passage of time. The writer most often wants “although” or “even though.”
âTil next time, happy writing, and may all of you enjoy a happy and prosperous and free New Year.
Harvey