Category: adverbs

No, it’s not what it sounds like, or even pop culture. I’m just trying to boost the hit count a bit. Of course, some of you read this at work, so I probably just got half of you blocked.

Yeah that’s right. I’m late posting this. And we all know the rules–that mean I get cut from the team.

Also, Bennett, you’re cut. Adamson, you’re cut, too. Belicynski, cut. Harper, cut. Brannon, Moody, Richmond, Young, McLeod–you’re all cut.

Brown, you’re still good.

Wait–J. Brown? No, you’re cut.

Everyone who’s left, let’s talk about this week’s topic.

One of the most common complaints I hear from people (in person and in various places online) is that it’s impossible to cut anything from their work. There’s just no way to make their novel less that 600,000 words. It’s a miracle they’ve squeezed the screenplay down to 190 pages. The manuscript cannot be any shorter. All too often, they’re saying this after the first draft. Heck, some people talk about their manuscript getting longer as they do successive drafts.

Y’see, Timmy, writers have to make cuts. They have to make their manuscript leaner, meaner, and cleaner. Readers prefer it that way. Editors prefer it that way.

So, a few painless ways you can make a few cuts and maybe trim a few hundred words from your writing…

Adverbs— When it comes down to it, adverbs are the Shemps of the writing world. We try to pretend they’re important, but they can always be replaced. As most of us get caught up in the flow of words, the impetus of a scene, and the thing that slides by most often is the all-but-useless adverb. For example…

–She excitedly tore open the present and happily said “This is the best Christmas ever!”

–They shouted loudly at the team.

–“Maybe I saw something, maybe I didn’t,” said Wakko coyly.

Do any of these adverbs add anything to these sentences? Three out of five times if you’re using an adverb, you just don’t need it. The fourth time odds are you’re using the wrong verb, and once you find the right one, again, you won’t need the adverb. And that fifth time… well, maybe it’s only one in six. If you’re using your vocabulary well, there aren’t many times you need an adverb.

Writer/ Editor Pat LoBrutto once tossed put a great rule of thumb I’ve mentioned a few times. One adverb per page, four adjectives per page. It’s only a guideline, granted, but if you’re averaging six or seven adverbs per paragraph maybe you should give them all a second look.

Hey, speaking of adjectives…

Adjectives—People often create compound adjectives from hell to describe things that tend to be pretty mundane when you think about it.

–She had ocean-like dark blue eyes.

–His armor was made of polished, meticulously-engraved, glossy-black ceramite.

–The tall, majestic, awe-inspiring cliffs of weatherworn, charcoal-gray stone loomed over them.

There’s an odd habit I’ve seen among fledgling fantasy writers to use dozens of adjectives per page, if not per sentence–often redundant ones like “obsidian black hair.” It’s part of that purple prose I mentioned above. It’s not exclusive to that genre, but frequent enough I felt it’s worth mentioning.

Of course, we all go a little overboard now and then (anyone who says they don’t is lying to you) because we’re convinced this person, this place, this thing needs more description. Yet we all know too much description brings things too a grinding halt.

That—This is a word people tend to drop into their writing a lot, and a good four out of five times their writing would be tighter without it. I used to be a that junkie until someone pointed out how unnecessary it often is.

–He ran off in the same direction that Wakko had.

–She believed that once the button was pressed, the world would be saved.

–Yakko knew once Dot saw the puppy that she would want to take it home.

On a recent manuscript I was working on, I cut over 1000 that‘s–almost a solid four pages. Use the Find feature in Word (it’s up there under Edit), search for uses of that in your writing, and see how many of them are necessary. Odds are you’ll find at least half of them aren’t.

“As you know…” –This is probably the clumsiest way to do exposition there is. Really. Think about it. Just by saying “as you know,” I’m stating that you–the person I’m speaking to–already know the facts I’m about to share. So why am I repeating them? As a writer, why would I have two characters engage in such a useless bit of dialogue?

When a writer puts in “as you know” or one of its half-breed cousins, it’s a weak attempt to put out some exposition through dialogue. If you’re using it, almost across the board there’s either (A) a better way to get the information to the reader or (B) no need for this information because it is already covered somewhere.

If you’ve got a really solid manuscript–I mean rock-solid– you might be able to get away with doing this once. Just once. As long as you don’t do it your first ten pages.

Useless Modifiers — I’ve also called this Somewhat Syndrome a few times. This is another one I wrestle with a lot, although I like to tell myself I’ve gotten better about it. It’s when you pepper your writing with somewhat.., a bit…, slightly…, and other such modifiers. Nine times out of ten they’re not doing anything except adding to your word count and slowing your story. Use the Find feature again, see how many of them are doing anything, and look how much tighter and stronger your writing is without them.

Appeared to be… –This is one of those phrases some people latch onto and use all the time. Problem is, most of them don’t understand it. It tends to be used as an introduction of sorts, leading the reader into some purple-prose description. This phrase sometimes disguises itself as looked like or seemed to be or some variation thereof.

The thing is appeared to be doesn’t get used alone. It’s part of a literary construction where the second half of that structure is either an implied or actual contradiction to the appearance. So when you’re saying…

–Phoebe appeared to stand six feet tall.

…what you’re really saying is…

–Phoebe appeared to stand six feet tall, but she was actually closer to five foot five without her stiletto heels.

And what you meant to be saying all along was just…

–Phoebe stood six feet tall.

If you aren’t trying to establish a contradiction, using appeared to be and its bastard stepchildren isn’t just wasted words– it’s wrong.

Long Names – If you’ve got a lot of characters with names like MacMortimerstein or Vandervecken, they’re going to take up a lot of space as their names get used again and again. They’re also awkward for the reader to juggle and keep track of. Plus, several of them will die as other characters rush to blurt out “Dear God, Doctor MacMortimerstein, look out for that… ahhhhh, too late!”

Try using simple names like Mort or Van, which are easier for readers to keep track of as well. It’s also human nature to shorten such names when we speak, so it makes for better dialogue, too. True, this will not lessen your word count, but it can shorten your page count, which is the next best thing.

Keep in mind, if there’s a solid reason for your alien cyborg billionaire midget to be called Bannakaffalatta and not Ban, stick with it. But if it’s just a background character you’re using for two chapters or three scenes…

Anyway, there’s seven quick, relatively painless cuts. Try them out and see if you can drop a few hundred words or more.

Next time, we’ll deal with this rampant ignorance, even if I have to explain everything using small words.

Until then, go write.

Bloody hell. Is it Thursday again already?

Whose idea was this ranty blog, anyway…?

Anyway, what I wanted to toss out this week was a rough outline of how I generally go about things. I’ve given lots of general suggestions, but I thought it might be cool to actually show a step by step, solid example of how I take a project from a rough idea to something I’ll show friends to something I consider worth showing to publishers/ producers/ contest readers/ and so on.

Plus it’s an easy one to write up and I’ve got to do one more article and a sidebar before the weekend.

As always, before going into this, I want to remind everyone of the golden rule. Just because this works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. There’s a better than average chance it won’t, in fact. But maybe it will spark a few thoughts or make you look at things in a new way

1st Draft— For me, this is just the “get it done” stage. I don’t worry much about catching typos or crafting every subtle moment in the plot. I just want to finish this draft with a beginning, an end, and the majority of points in between.

I tend to skip around a lot in the first draft, which means I could start with almost anything. I’ll scribble down random beats or dialogue exchanges that occurred to me while the idea was fermenting in my head and drop them more or less where I think they’d go. I talked a little bit last week how I got started on Ex-Heroes.

At this early stage, if I get stuck on something (an awkward conversation or complex action scene), I’ll just skip it for now. I know I can work out exactly how Yakko convinced Wakko to give him a pistol later, so I’d rather keep moving than stay on this point too long and risk getting blocked on the whole thing (too long being a completely subjective, case-by-case term). Again, for me, the most important thing is to get it done. It’s a lot easier to think about the little things when the big things aren’t looming over you.

I also don’t hold back here at all. I let dialogue, descriptions, and action scenes go on forever. I know I’ll be cutting eventually, so there’s no reason to worry about length now. I mean, if you wanted to find a pound of gold, you wouldn’t dig up 1.1 pounds of soil, hope for the best, and just call it a day.

No one sees this draft but me.

2nd Draft— Now it’s time to smooth it out. All those little bits I skipped I need to go back and fill in. All those awkward knots need to be worked out. A lot of the time I’ll find that, because I can now see a lot of these elements in relation to the whole story, the answers to these problems are more apparent.

The goal now is to have a readable manuscript. No more little notes to myself or trailing paragraphs that need to get connected somehow. Someone should be able to pick this up and read it start to finish without thinking they lost a few pages or only got my notes on a chapter.

Keep in mind this doesn’t mean I do show it to people. It just means I should be able to. Really, the only person who might see this is my lady-love, and not even her always. Sometimes she has to wait.

A few people have argued with me these two drafts really just amount to me doing a first draft in two stages. That may be true, but they’re not writing the ranty blog, are they?

Okay then, so… now I step away for a couple of days. Maybe a week. Don’t look at it, try not to think too much about it. And then…

3rd Draft–Stephen King says to start cutting on draft two, but as I said, my draft two is what some people may call a solid first draft. As such, I usually wait until draft three to start slashing. This is where I hunt down adverbs, adjectives, pointless dialogue descriptors, and so on. Two fun rules I’ve mentioned before–

2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%

one adverb per page, four adjectives

One thing I really go after here is the padding phrases I tend to drop in (sort of, somewhat, kind of, more or less) that don’t really do anything. As I’ve mentioned before, one of my regular editors at work has dubbed this awful habit of mine Somewhat Syndrome. Feel free to pass that one along.

By this time I’ve gone over the whole manuscript at least twice, so some bigger cuts should be visible. That rant Wakko gives about socialized medicine. Dot’s flashback to the first time she got drunk in college. That long, meticulous description of Yakko loading his pistol. That’s some beautiful writing there, but is it actually doing anything?

This is also when I can usually spot structure issues. In larger stories, it’s not uncommon to have “floating” events that are important, but aren’t tied to a solid point in the script. This one may be here right now, but having all of the story in my head lets me realize it would work better there, and it would be a more solid fit.

If I haven’t already, this is when I let the lady love have a look. She’s my first set of eyes to let me know I screwed up something and I’m too close to see it.

All things considered, this is usually two or three weeks of full-time work for me.

4th Draft–This is the first big polish. I go through sentence by sentence, looking for words that come up too often or stilted dialogue. I also make sure all the cuts and swaps from the last draft haven’t messed anything up. Are the character arcs still smooth? Logic chains are still complete? Are the transitions still good? Are the parallels parallel? Did this character turn into a man for a few minutes in the middle of the chapter? Did Yakko just pull a gun out of nowhere?

When the fourth draft is all shiny, this is the one I show folks for comments. I generally send it out to five people. They’re a carefully selected bunch, all of whom have some level of literary background, and I don’t think there’s one among them I’ve known for less than five years. One’s actually been reading and critiquing my work for over two decades now, and she still doesn’t cut me any slack. The key thing is they’re all people who will give honest, useful criticism. There won’t be huge, unexplained X’s across the page, meaningless feedback, or cartoons in the margins.

Well, not often, anyway.

This goes off into the world and it may be a month or two before I look at it again. The trick here is to resist messing with it while those people are looking at it.

5th Draft— Now I’ve gotten notes back from whatever folks I cajoled into reading this thing. I sit down with all the comments and go through the whole thing page by page. What did everyone think of page one? What comments were there on page two? How’s page three look? As I’m doing this, I’ve also got my own copy of the 4th draft that I’m using as a “master document.” This way I can get all the notes assembled in the relevant place and make whatever changes are required. This document is more or less the 5th draft, and it can take another two weeks or more to finish it with a full book manuscript.

I mentioned above that I try to get five people to make comments for me, and that’s partly so I can get a broader sampling on each issue that comes up. If four people like something but one doesn’t, odds are I’ll call that good. Nobody’s going to get every joke or like every chapter. If three don’t and two do (and of course I do, or I wouldn’t’ve written it), I’ll sit and give it a good look. And if none of them like it, well… I’m smart enough to know when I’ve screwed up something doesn’t work.

6th Draft— This one’s yet another smoothing, polishing draft. Now that I made those tweaks and changes from my reader’s notes, I need to make sure everything works again. So, yet another line by line reading, tweaking and adjusting as I go.

And honestly, at this point… this is when I give up. There is only so much a given writer–in this case, me– can do with a given story. There comes a point when further work accomplishes nothing and, as the Brits so eloquently put it, you’re just wanking. If it’s not ready to show to a publisher by now, it probably means I screwed up something right at the start on a very basic level. Perhaps when I first thought I could adapt Pilgrim’s Progress into a hardcore gothic romance.

There’s also a danger that if you keep trying to come up with reasons to do another draft, you’ll keep finding them. I’m sure we all know someone who’s just been working on the same manuscript for years and years and years because they’ve got another one or two drafts to put it through. After a while of that, your story stops looking like a coherent tale and a bit more like the Winchester Mystery House.

This pattern may not work for you. Everyone’s going to handle things a little differently. I got to talk to Kevin Smith a while back and he said that he wrote screenplays on a scene-by-scene basis. He’d write a few pages, read, revise, read, smoke a bit, revise again, read, polish it, and move on to the next few pages. So by the time his script was completed, he’s reached what I’m calling the end of draft four.

Y’see, Timmy, the important thing, as always, is not how you do it but that you do it. It’s annoying as hell, and all-too-often used as an excuse, but there is something to that old chestnut “writing is re-writing.” You can’t expect something to be publication-ready the moment it leaves your fingertips. Doing this professionally means going over a piece again and again rather than mailing off your first draft while you move on to your next glorious and epic-worthy idea. If you’re not willing to put the extra effort into your writing, it’s always going to end up in that large pile on the left.

Next week, Booboo, I want to discuss those picnic baskets the campers have. Sort of.

Until then, go write.

Or rewrite.

One might wonder why I spend so much time going over basic stuff. After all, everyone knows how to write, yes? The sheer fact you can read this implies you could write it, too.

So why spend time on simplistic things like spelling and adverbs and character descriptions? Why not do the important stuff, like how to get an agent, who to submit things to, or what’s that magic word or phrase a paid reader needs to see on a page before he or she passes material up the line? After all, that’s what most people are asking about.

There’s three parts to that answer.

The first is I was supposed to be a teacher. Went to college for it and everything. Combine that with my own nature as a storyteller, and it makes me far more inclined to talk about things where I can instruct by example rather than parroting something available on four or five dozen websites, online newsletters, and print magazines.

The second can be best explained, and was inspired, by this dream I had the other night about the most amazing power saw ever.

No, seriously, this thing was fantastic. It was about the size of a Red Bull can and it cut through anything with no effort at all. Even a computer screen. I’m pretty sure the image of it was inspired by a detonator I saw on 24 last week…

But I digress.

Pretty much any toolbox is going to have a hammer and saw. They’re two of the most basic tools in existence, and you can find evidence of them going back millennia. Think about that. Thousands and thousands of years ago, countless generations before the Roman empire, the Egyptians and the Babylonians were using hammers and saws not much different than the ones you might have in your own toolbox.

Of course, nowadays a toolbox can have so much more in it. Just from my years in the film industry I built up a ridiculously diverse toolbox, and I wasn’t even in a tool-heavy department. Crescent wrenches. Allen wrenches. Screwdrivers of all different types and sizes. Tape measures. Clamps. Drill bits. Stud finders. Speed squares. Dremels. Tile knives. Tin snips. And, of course, a hammer and saw. Those basic tools built the pyramids, Abu Hol, and the hanging gardens of Babylon.

Thing is, a lot of folks will start building a toolbox with just the cool stuff. All-in-one screwdrivers. Multisocket sets. Laser-levels. Robo-grip wrenches (there is such a thing, I swear). They’ll hold off on the hammer and saw—those are the easy things, after all. Or they’ll get one of those bizarre, dainty little ones from the 99 Cents Store that might help drive thumbtacks into a corkboard.

Y’see, Timmy, any contractor will tell you it’s great to have all the latest gadgets. At the end of the day, though, if you can’t work well with two of the most basic tools in existence, you probably shouldn’t be on the jobsite. And just because you do know how to use them… well, it’s a great place to start. Work your way up, try a couple smaller projects, and maybe you can be building apartment buildings next summer.

And that leads us, finally, to the third part of my answer.

The reason I tend to go over the basics more than anything else is because the basics is where I see most fledgling writers having problems. Oh, yeah, their third act reveal was flat, the romance felt forced, and there wasn’t really a satisfying denouement to Yakko’s character arc. Thing is, most readers didn’t get past ninja-master Professor Lance Braniac fixing his time machination’s electoral system on page four of this 73-page novel so he can go back to 1957 and challenge Adolph Hitler to a dual.

When we’re dealing with all that, those other issues really need to wait on the sidelines for now.

To stick with our construction metaphor, there are tons of people out there talking about interior design while they drive a nail in with the handle of a pipe wrench. Or, to make it a bit clearer, they’re worried about shingling the roof and hanging gutters long before they’ve poured a workable foundation.

Yes, most of us took shop class in school, but that doesn’t mean we should all be building skyscrapers. Aspiring chefs don’t expect to run the kitchen on their first job. And it’s silly to assume you can call yourself a writer when you haven’t mastered the basics. Or even when you’ve mastered them.

To be a writer, you need to have all the right tools. Starting with the basic ones, which you need to be the complete and unquestioned master of. Until then, you have no business worrying about wrapping up character arcs.

Or building skyscrapers, for that matter.

With that fresh in your mind, next week I’d like to talk about how some of you apparently think I’m some kind of idiot.

Until then… go write.