Category: drafts

             This is going to be one of those posts that sounds a bit harsh at first, but hopefully you’ll stick through ‘till the end before posting those angry responses.  If you’re feeling a bit thin-skinned, maybe you should come back next week.

            Writing is tough.  It’s hard work.  I know this, because I do it for a living.  When someone tells me how easy and wonderful and fun writing is, I’m often tempted to point out that they’re probably doing something wrong.

            Instead, I bite my tongue and scribble notes for a ranty blog post or two.

            There was a point when I thought writing was easy and fun.  To be blunt, that was back when I wasn’t taking it seriously.  My plots were either contrived or derivative (some might say that hasn’t changed).  My characterization was weak and my motives were… well, whatever they needed to be at the moment to make that weak plot move along.  I rarely edited. 

            Perhaps most important of all… I thought I was a literary genius.  My stories didn’t just deserve Stokers and Hugos, mind you.  Once I got around to finishing them and sending them out, they were going to get Pulitzers and Nobels.

            Needless to say, my writing made huge leaps when I was able to admit a few things to myself.  I think that’s true of most people in most fields—if we can’t be honest about where we are, it’s hard to improve.

            That being said…

My writing sucks—This sounds harsh, yeah, but it needs to be.  Too many beginning writers just can’t get past the idea that something they wrote isn’t good.  I know I couldn’t.  It’s just against human nature to spend hours on something and then tell yourself you just wasted a bunch of time.  Why would I write something I couldn’t sell?  Obviously I wouldn’t, so my latest project must deserve a six-figure advance.

            The problem here is the learning curve.  None of us like to be the inexperienced rookie, but the fact is it’s where everyone starts.  Surgeons, chefs, pilots, astronomers, mechanics… and writers.  Oh, there are a few gifted amateurs out there, yeah—very, very few—but the vast majority of us have to work at something to get good at it. 

            You noticed I said “us,” right?  Lots of people think of Ex-Heroes as my first novel, but it wasn’t.  There was Lizard Men from the Center of the Earth (two versions), a God-awful sci-fi novel called A Piece of Eternity, some Star Wars and Doctor Who fan fic, a puberty-fuelled fantasy novel (which I haven’t admitted to in twenty years or so), The Werewolf Detective of Newbury Street, The Trinity, The Suffering Map, about half of a novel called Mouth… and thenEx-Heroes.  And I can tell you without question that most of those really sucked.  It doesn’t mean I didn’t try to sell some of them (we’ll get to that in a minute), but I couldn’t improve as a writer until I accepted that I needed to improve.

My first draft is going to suck—There was a point where I would fret over my writing.  I’d spend time laboring over individual words, each sentence, every paragraph.  I’d get halfway down the page and then go back to try to fix things.  It meant my productivity was slowed to a crawl because I kept worrying about what had happened in my story instead of what was going to happen.

            The freeing moment was when I realized my first draft was always going to suck, and that’s okay.  Everyone’s first draft sucks.  Everyone has to go back and rework stuff.  It’s the nature of the beast.  With those expectations gone, it became much easier for me to finish a first draft, which is essential if I ever wanted to get to a second draft, and a third draft, and maybe even a sale.

My writing needs editing.  Lots of editing—So, as I just mentioned, I’ve been doing this for a while.  Arguably thirty-five years.  Surely by now I’ve hit the point where my stuff rolls onto the page (or screen) pretty much ready to go, yes?  I mean, at this point I must qualify as a good writer and I don’t need to obsess so much over those beginner-things, right?

            Alas, no.  We all take the easy path now and then.  We all have things slip past us.  We all misjudge how some things are going to be read.  And I’m fortunate to have a circle of friends and a really good editor at my publisher who all call me out when I make these mistakes or just take the easy route when I’m capable of doing something better.

            Also, as I mentioned above, part of this is the ability to accept these notes and criticisms.  I’m not saying they’re all going to be right (and I’ve been given a few really idiotic notes over the years), but if my default position is that any criticism is wrong then my work is never going to improve past the first draft. 

            Which, as I also mentioned above, sucks.

My writing needs cuts—Sticking to the theme, if I believe my writing is perfect, it stands to reason all of it is perfect.  It’s not 90% perfect with those two odd blocks that should be cut.  When I first started to edit, one of my big problems was that everythingneeded to be there.  It was all part of the story.  Each subplot, every action detail and character moment, all of the in-jokes and clever references.

            The Suffering Map was where I first started to realize things need to be cut.  I’d overwritten—which is fine in a first draft as long as you admit it in later drafts.  I had too many characters, too much detail, subplots that had grown too big, character arcs that became too complex.  It took a while, but I made huge cuts to the book.  It had to be done.  Heck, with one of my more recent ones, 14, I needed to cut over 20,000 words.  That’s a hundred pages in standard manuscript format.  All cut.

My writing is going to be rejected –You know what I’ve got that most of you reading this will never have?  Rejection letters.  Actual paper letters that were mailed to me by editors.  I’ve got lots of them.  Heck, I’ve probably got a dozen from Marvel Comics alone.  And since then I’ve got them from magazines, big publishers, journals, magazines, ezines.

            But when that first one came from Jim Shooter at Marvel… I was crushed.  Devastated.  How could he not like my story?  It was a full page!  It was typed!  I even included a rendering of a cover suggestion in brilliant colored pencil.  It took me weeks—whole weeks, plural—to work up my courage to try again, and then he shot that one down, too.

            Granted, I was about eleven, and those stories were really awful.  But even good stuff gets rejected.  Heck, even with the list of credits I’ve got now, the last two short stories I sent out were rejected.  Editors and publishers are people too, and not everything is going to appeal to everyone.  I came to accept being rejected once I realized it wasn’t some personal attack (okay, once it was…), just a person who didn’t connect with my story for some reason.

            And, sometimes, because my stories sucked.

            If I can admit some of these things to myself, it can only make me a better, stronger writer.  It’s not a flaw or a weakness.  In fact, if I look at the above statements and immediately think “Well, yeah, but I don’t…,” it’s probably a good sign I’m in denial about some things.

            And that won’t get me anywhere.

            Next time, I’d like to say a few clever words about saying the word said.

            Until then, go write.

            A few quick cuts.  A little off the top.

            Once again, I must make pathetic excuses for missing last week.  I wanted to post this Wednesday night before I left for Crypticon Seattle, but ended up bogged down in last minute preparations.  By the time I realized I never put this up, I was about two miles above San Francisco.

            Anyway, enough of my pathetic excuses.  Let’s talk about cuts.

            As writers, we all need to make cuts.  Our first drafts always have too much.  We put in every wild idea and detail and prolonged conversation.

            Before anyone says anything—no.  None of us write perfect first drafts.  Not one person reading this.  Not you.  Not me.  Definitely not that guy over there.  The only person who writes usable first drafts is Paul Haggis, and even he doesn’t think they’re perfect (Clint Eastwood does, though).  And Paul isn’t here, so we’re back to saying none of us.

            (Mr. Haggis—if you are here, thanks so much for the support.  You probably don’t remember, but I interviewed you twice for Creative Screenwriting and you were fantastic)

            All this means that in the second draft, third at the latest, we have to make cuts.  We want our books and screenplays and short stories to be lean and tight.  It’s a tough world out there, with a lot of tough publishers, and I can’t expect my story to get anywhere if it’s not at fighting weight.

            So, here’s a few quick, painless ways you can make some cuts and help your manuscript lose a thousand words or so…

            Adverbs—  As I said above, 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.  We try to pretend they’re important, but they can always be replaced.  When it comes down to it, adverbs are the Shemps of the writing world.

            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.

            I was at a conference a few years back where writer/ Editor Pat LaBrutto tossed put a great rule of thumb.  One adverb per page, four adjectives per page.  It’s only a guideline, granted, but if you’re averaging five or six adverbs per paragraph… maybe you should give them all a second look.

            In my recent editorial pass of the fourth Ex book, I cut just over 200 adverbs from the manuscript.  That’s almost a full page of adverbs, gone.  Search your manuscript for LY and see how many you find.

            Adjectives—People use a lot of adjectives to make normal, average things sound interesting.  Coincidentally, these folks tend to have a poor vocabulary.  So when I don’t know multiple words for shirt (like Henley, tunic, tee, blouse, polo, Oxford), I’ll just use multiple adjectives. 

            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 extra description.  Yet we all know too much description brings things too a grinding halt.

            There’s an odd habit I’ve seen among fantasy writers—not only them, but enough to make it worth mentioning—to use dozens of adjectives per page, if not per sentence–often redundant ones like “gleaming chrome blade of pure silver.”  I’ve mentioned before that I used to help run an online fantasy game a few years back, and the other night I was talking with one of the staff members who’s still there.  And she and I hit on a wonderful turn of phrase that I think applies here.  Simply put, using more adjectives and adverbs doesn’t make me a better writer.  It just means I’ve got a weak vocabulary and I’m a very poor editor.

            That—People tend to drop that 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.

She punched him in the same spot that he had been stabbed in.
He knew that the machine would not stop—ever—until she was dead.
Phoebe could see that the two of them were meant to be together.

            On that same Ex book, I cut over 130 that‘s—just over half a page.  Use the Find feature, search for uses of that in your writing, and see how many of them are necessary.  Odds are you’ll find that at least half of them aren’t.

           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 I pepper my writing with somewhat.., sort of…, a bit…, kind of…, and other such modifiers. Nine times out of ten they’re not doing anything except adding to my word count (not in the good way) and slowing my story (also not in the good way).  Use the Find feature again and see how many of these are doing anything in your writing, and look how much tighter and stronger your story is without them.  I cut another 200 hundred of these in the aforementioned Ex book manuscript.

            Appeared to be…   –This is one of those phrases some folks 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 seemed to be or looked like 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.  So when I’m saying…

            …what I’m really saying is something along the lines of…

            …and what I wanted to say all along was just…

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

            “As you know…” –I’ve mentioned once or thrice before that this is probably the clumsiest way to do exposition there is.  Really.  Ignore everything else I’ve said here, but please take this one bit of advice to heart.

            Just by saying “as you know,” I’m stating that the character I’m speaking to already knows the facts I’m about to share.  So why repeat them?  Why would I have two people engage in such a useless bit of dialogue?

            When I put in “as you know” or one of its half-breed cousins, it’s a poor attempt to put some exposition in my story with dialogue.  If I’m using it, I guarantee you there’s either (A) a better way to get the information to the reader or (B) no need for it because it’s already covered somewhere else.

            I might be able to get away with doing this once–just once–if I’ve got a solid manuscript.  I mean rock-solid.  And even then, it shouldn’t be in my opening pages.

            Anyway, there’s half a dozen quick, easy cuts.  Try them out and see if you can drop a few hundred words or more.

            Next time, I want to get back on schedule by quickly pointing out a possible problem.

            Until then, go write.

            This is going to be one of those screenwriting-centric weeks, although you could probably find some helpful hints.  If nothing else, I’m feeling a little slappy this week so you’ll probably find it very entertaining.

            It’s that time of year again.  The big-gun screenplay contests have opened their doors and are accepting entries.  Thousands of scripts are pouring in, ready to be judged, all with the hope of winning fortune, fame, and possibly a whole new life.

            Really, who needs that kind of pressure?

            It’s so much easier not to win, isn’t it?  Less work, less effort, and less responsibility.  Nobody really wants to deal with the money or the buzz or the constant calls from agents and managers and studios, right?

            As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve watched this play out from both sides.  I used to read for a few contests and spent long days and nights going through script after script, often seeing the same mistakes again and again.  I’ve also placed in a bunch of contests– and when I say placed I don’t mean I got the honorary quarter-finalist position that was given to everybody who entered.  I’ve won prizes and been singled out a few times. 

            So I know the kind of things that make a reader cringe and shake their head.  The things that make them shout and scream.  In one or two cases, only the timely intervention of booze kept me from gouging my own eyes out.

            I’m going to share those secrets with you right now.  Here are eight insider tricks which will help you ensure that your screenplay never makes it past the first round. In fact, if you can manage all of these, your script will go down in flames.

            And that’s what we all want, right?

            Spelling is one if those outdated, elitist things that pretty much every contest uses as a general guideline, even when its painfully abhorrent whit some won meant too spill.  That makes this then easiest way to fail.  All I need to do is trust in my idiot spellchecker and never bother to look anything up.  A dozen or so misspelled and misused words in the first ten pages of my script will make sure any reader is biased to think I have no idea what I’m doing, and that means any good stuff that accidentally slipped into my story later on will be viewed with a much, much more critical eye.

            When I screw up my punctuation, it really grates on a reader’s nerves because it affects how they take in the story?  This is a slow, cumulative, thing that can really kill my chances and help swing the vote if someone’s on the fence, about my manuscript!  And anything, that can help lower my chances of moving on, is a good thing, right.

            A fantastic, screw-turning punctuation mistake is not knowing how to use apostrophe’s.  Yeah, they’re almost always used to show possession, almost never plurals, but it’s easy to forget that simple rule and use them for lot’s of thing’s.  Not knowing it’s or its is a great one that will make sure the reader can’t take me seriously as a writer.  That’s one of those easy mistakes that will make the odds of winning inch away little by little until it’s a good, safe distance away.

  

            Contest have a lot of weird, arbitrary rules and requirements.  Some only want to see certain genres or themes.  Others won’t take adaptations.  A few of them will even put certain requirements on me as the screenwriter. 

            Ignore all of this.

            I make a point of sending torture porn scripts to competitions that are looking for  strong family themes and morals.  I submit romantic comedies to sci-fi contests.  If it’s for feature films, I send them the television pilot I wrote in college.  I make it a point to go at least ten pages past the maximum acceptable length.  If the competition is only for women or minorities, I make sure there’s a picture of my pasty-white junk on the cover so the readers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m an Anglo-Saxon male.

            Doing something completely unacceptable like this takes a little more effort on my part, but it’s a pretty much guaranteed way to make sure I fail.

            Hollywood is like any industry, and “industry-standard” is a term that shifts and changes all the time.  Learning the current, proper script format is tough, and can require typing things into Google and then looking at the results.  I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have time for stuff like that.

            As I see it, all these rules about headers and sluglines are just as arbitrary as spelling and grammar.  If I must format something, I like to use classic screenplays from the ‘40s and ‘50s as my guideline.  After all, if that page layout was good enough for Casablanca it’s good enough for people today. 

            Casablancawon an Oscar, you know. 

            I’ve even submitted stage plays to a few screenwriting contests.  Because at the end of the day, it’s still going to be a story in front of an audience, right?  I’ve never been clear why this gets some readers so frustrated that they start marking down for it.  The important thing, from our point of view, is that we can depend on them to do it and keep us out of that semi-finalist round.

            The people who want to win often do a second draft.  Sometimes even a third.  They cut and rewrite and restructure and a bunch of other stuff that… well, you’d need to be a screenwriter to understand.  It’s a lot of work to get into that very uncomfortable position of being the winner.

            I prefer to go off the assumption that my work is perfect and needs no alterations or adjustments of any kind.  It’s like a diamond in the rough, just without the rough part.  It doesn’t even need polishing.  This is a great mindset to be in, because when my script gets rejected it casts all the blame squarely on the reader.  Because my script was perfect.

            Bam.  How great is that?  No work.  No pressure.  No winning.  It’s  a screenwriting trifecta.

  

            This method succeeds in getting me kicked out of the contest for a few reasons.  I don’t need to learn formatting, because it’s just going to be for me, Colleen, Patrick, and Sam.  I don’t need to explain a lot of stuff or go into detail because we all know what we’re talking about.  And it saves me time because I don’t need to take out all the stage directions, camera angles, parentheticals, editing notes, and other things cluttering the script.  You know, the stuff I added in to help me out when we shoot this next summer in Marcus and Gillian’s garage.

            See, readers are going to get hung up on all this stuff and say it’s not relevant.  That’s just a bonus.  Now when I get rejected, I’ve got proof Hollywood doesn’t recognize my genius. And probably that the contest is rigged.  In favor of people from Hollywood.

            Okay, if I want to use this method to lose, one of the first things to do is make sure the reader knows this is based on a true story.  I need to put it on the cover, preferably as part of the title.  Opening monologues that explain this is all based on real events are good, closing monologues are better.  If I can figure out how to do both, that’s great.  Being very clear about this up front puts all the pressure on the readers, because now they must find my story believable.  Because it’s true.

            The next thing is to make sure the true story I’m basing this on is very boring and common.  If it’s something that happens to, say, half the people on earth in a given year, that’s excellent.  A quarter of the population isn’t bad, but I really want my true story to be as banal as possible.  It’ll improve my chances of failure a lot if the events can actually be dull in and of themselves, so I need to be honest with myself about how interesting they are.  I don’t want to mess up and tell a story that most people might actually want to see on the big screen.

            This one’s a bit tougher because I’m depending on everyone else in the contest to make up stories that are inherently more interesting than my true one.  Which isn’t that hard, but I don’t want my failure to hinge on someone else doing a better job than me.  So it’s best to choose a topic like cancer, a non-competitive sporting event, or maybe something about a gutsy schoolteacher.  These things will almost always drag my script right down, assuming the reader can stay awake long enough to judge it.

            Last but not least, this is the knockout punch in my “losing a screenplay contest” arsenal.  If for some reason I can’t use any of the above tricks or angles, I need to actually make the script itself difficult to read.  Using a non-standard font is good for this, and only takes a few clicks of my mouse to get the script out of Courier and into something unacceptable like , Garamond, or Papyrus. 

            Another good trick is shrinking the font.  Readers see enough scripts every day that they’ll immediately notice this and it will drive them nuts, trust me.  The downside is this will actually make my script shorter, so if I do this it means I have to make my script even longer so it stays past the maximum acceptable length (as mentioned above).  If I’m not careful, this can lead to a vicious circle where I eventually end up with a 400,000 word script in 6-point font, and that’s a lot more work than I want to put into a contest I’m trying to lose.

            There are some other tricks, too, like giving lots of characters similar names (David, Davila, Danny, Danielle, Darcy).  You can also try naming every character, including bit parts and non-speaking roles.  Y’see, Timmy, this will confuse the hell out of a reader and make them waste a lot of time trying to keep things straight, and that will get them really frustrated with my script.  I can also confuse them by naming and describing as many characters as possible at the same time.  I like to call this “the dump truck approach.”

            And there you have it.  Eight sneaky tips and tricks you can use to make sure your screenplay never gets past the first round of judging.  You might like to know these methods also work if you’re submitting to agents or film studios. 

            So, take the easy way out and avoid all that extra work and stress. 

            Don’t win.

            I’m going to be taking next week off while I deal with a lot of things for the re-release of Ex-Heroes (available everywhere Tuesday the 26th).  But Thom Brannan, author of Lords of Nightand co author of Pavlov’s Dogs, is going to sit in and talk to you a bit about getting stuff out of your head and onto the page.  Then I’ll be back the week after to talk about one of my favorite topics.

            Until then, go write.

            Bonus points and a vocabulary star if any of you actually know what that title phrase refers to.  No, don’t cheat and look it up.  Be honest about what you know and what you don’t.

            So, since I was away editing for a bit I though this would be a good time to toss up some thoughts on editing.  I’ve been doing this professionally for almost a decade now–full time for close to six years–and I still need to do lots of editing.  It’s just one of those unavoidable truths–99.9999% of us don’t write usable first drafts.

            For the record, that .0001% is Paul Haggis, so don’t think you’re the exception.  He is.  And it took him thirty years to become the exception.

            Cutting is painful, though, because it means losing lots of stuff.  I poured my heart into the first draft of 14, but in the end I still needed to cut over 20,000 words from it.  That’s a hundred pages, gone.  And it’s a leaner, tighter, stronger book because of it.

            Well, because of most of it.

            Knowing that my writing needs work is a strength.  It’s not admitting failure.  It’s admitting I can improve, and if someone can’t admit that they’re never going to improve.

            The thing is, so many folks think making cuts means lopping off entire subplots or removing well-developed characters or cutting out that three page monologue from a random guy on the street explaining how tax cuts for the rich are really good for the middle class.  Editing doesn’t mean cutting all that (although you probably could lose that monologue and not a lot of folks will complain).  It can mean just a general tightening and trimming of all the little things. 

            Think of those Olympic swimmers, runners, and bicyclists.  They know that shaving their exposed hair and wearing tight clothes reduces drag.  Not by much, but the little things pile up and can make the difference between a gold medal and a silver one. 

            So here’s a couple very easy, straightforward ways you can make cuts and maybe trim a few thousand words from your writing…

            That— Whenever I start editing, I always start with a “that” pass.  It’s a word we all drop into our writing in an attempt to be grammatically perfect, but four out of five times the writing would be just as clear (and more concise) without it.

————————————–

            Phoebe thought that Wakko would love her new dress.

            He chose the same weapon that his predecessor had used.

            Phoebe thought Wakko would love her new dress.

            He chose the same weapon his predecessor had used.

————————————–

            On my first pass through 14 I removed over 600 uses of that.  That’s over two pages.  In Ex-Communication, I cut over 200 of them.  Use the Find feature in Word (it’s up there under Edit) and search for it in your writing.  See how often it shows up.  Check how many of them are necessary.  Odds are you’ll find at least half of them aren’t.

            Adverbs—  This is usually my second pass through the editing draft.  This time I use Find to locate all the places “ly” shows up.  I can admit it—as I get caught up in the flow of words a lot of adverbs sneak into my writing.  And they’re pretty useless…

————————————–

          They all screamed loudly at the approaching psychopath.
          “Shut your damn mouth, bitch,” snapped Phoebe angrily.

          He eagerly grabbed the statue he’d spent weeks searching for.

————————————-

            Do those adverbs add anything to their sentences?  Would a reader figure out that Phoebe was angry, or that the scream was loud?  I’d guess three out of five times I find an adverb in my writing I don’t need it.  The fourth time I’ve chosen the wrong verb, and once I’ve got the right one… well, I don’t need the adverb.  If I’m using my vocabulary well, there aren’t many times I’ll need one.  I cut over 500 adverbs and adverbial phrases out of 14 and 330 out ofEx-Communication.

            I heard a great rule of thumb from writer/ editor Pat LaBrutto that I’ve mentioned a few times.  One adverb per page, four adjectives per page.  It’s just a guideline, granted, but if you’re averaging six or seven adverbs per paragraph maybe you should give them all a second look.  And then a third look.

            Useless Modifiers — I’ve also called this Somewhat Syndrome a few times.  This is one I struggle with a lot, but I’m getting much more aware of it.  It’s when I pepper my sentences with  somewhat, almost, a bit, slightly, and other such modifiers.  They show up in dialogue a lot, and sometimes in prose when I’m trying not to sound awkward with a bunch of specifics.

            Nine times out of ten they’re not doing anything, though, except adding to my word count and slowing my story down.  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.  I cut almost 450 of these out of 14and over 200 from Ex-Communication.

            …Of…–The word of can be a flag that something could be cut.  A fair amount of the time, of is being used to tack on an extra bit of description.  More often than not that description’s unnecessary and something the reader already knows.  Which means it’s dragging my prose down and slowing the pace.  There’s a reason we all tend to say United States far more often than United States of America.

            Check out these examples…

————————————–

Captain Lancaster of the Defiant is here to see you, sir.

The razor-sharp edge of the sword flew through the beast’s neck without hesitation.

vs.

Captain Lancaster is here to see you, sir.

The razor sharp edge flew through the beast’s neck without hesitation.

————————————–

            It’s not a sure-fire thing, but once I went looking I found three or four of these in Ex-Communicationthat could go away.

            Appeared to be…   –This is one of those phrases some people latch onto and use all the time.  It slips into my writing, too.  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, though, 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.  I cut thirteen of these that had slipped into Ex-Communication at one point or another.

            “As you know…” –I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  If you take nothing else from this little rant, take this one lesson.

            “As you know…” is probably the clumsiest form of 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.  As a writer, why would I have two characters engage in such a useless bit of dialogue?

            When a writer uses “as you know” or one of its half-breed cousins (“you may recall” or “if you remember” or many others), it’s a weak attempt to put out some exposition through dialogue.  My lovely lady pointed out that a lot of these sentences tend to start with “Look…”.  If I’m using any of them, 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 ‘s already covered somewhere else. 

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

            In Ex-Heroesit’s on page 98.

            Anyway, there’s half a dozen quick, easy, and relatively painless cuts.  Try them out and see if you can drop a thousand words or more.

            Next time, I think we’re long overdue for a talk about spelling.  And I’ve got a great list for you this time.

            Until then, go write.