Self-editing for fiction writers: Character "voice" in dialogue

I sat down this morning, requisite cup of coffee in hand, to take a close look at a short story I'd written a few months back.  It's one of those stories, the ones that you know have a good character and good plot arc, but there's something a bit off that you can't quite put your finger on.  This particular piece has been workshopped twice, to a bevvy of wonderful comments, but the slight problem lingers, which irks me.

A close inspection now, after having shelved it for a few months, revealed a small, but significant problem:  the main character's voice wasn't appropriate in the dialogue.  She's in her early sixties, children grown and gone, a housewife (how I hate that term, but that's a story for another day) with little confidence in herself and her abilities, grew up in the late 50s, and is a consummate worrywart.

She doesn't say much, 28 words out of 727, and only two lines of dialogue, which was part of the problem.  Those two lines were significant, which had been my intention, but I hadn't looked closely enough at exactly what she was actually saying in those two lines.  And therein lay the problem.  She'd lost a bit of her lack of confidence (and for no apparent reason), her words displaying a surety about herself that she shouldn't have possessed (a surety I only caught when I went through and read the dialogue, and nothing else, aloud).  A few minor changes, along with the addition of a bit more nonverbal communication on her part, and I'm pretty sure the problem's solved.

Congruency and consistency across and within characters is important, so make sure, when editing, that your character's dialogue (and "voice") match the character you've constructed.  Also, because dialogue is meant to be spoken, it's a good idea to read it aloud.  If your character doesn't quite sound "in character," it's likely that they aren't.

Fixated on a theme

I’ve spent the last few days thinking about thresholds, in general, and luminal spaces, more specifically. I’ve made mind maps, jotted random thoughts on random scraps of paper, and spent a sleepless early morning contemplating the nature of metamorphosis, embarkment, and the last transformation of the human soul (courtesy of my recent foray into Chinese mythology and butterflies). I’ve even written a short story on the topic, as I edged around and toward what I really wanted to write about, as if by writing near it I could somehow move forward.

Why the struggle? I had a vague idea of what I wanted to write about, but wasn’t sure how to approach it, or even if I should (or could) approach it. Is it really my story to tell? Maybe, and maybe not. But if I don’t tell it, no one else will. The theme is stuck in my head, and for a good reason. I still have no idea exactly how I’m going to write about it, but I’m going to put pen to paper, and see what happens. At this point, I don’t even know what format or genre it’s going to take, but I do know that, for some reason, I need to write it. And that’s reason enough to, at least for me.  

Self-editing for fiction writers: Making description active

We've all read one of those books.  You know the kind.  The ones where the action is wonderful, the characters are complex, and you're hooked on the story.  There's just one problem:  the extensive descriptive passages that seem to have nothing to do with the story.

If you're like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about physical setting before you write.  I usually have a pretty clear idea in my head of what things look like, where they are, and how/why they're significant to my characters.  And I've been known, in first drafts, go just write a descriptive sequence, knowing that it'll have to be changed at a later date.  After all, readers will want to know what the setting looks like, at least to an extent, but I know that they're not going to want to read two pages of description of a character's apartment.     Your characters will need to interact with the setting, changing setting elements from active to passive.

That big, black leather couch under the window?  It shouldn't just sit there and do nothing.  It doesn't have to grow legs or do anything odd, but passive description can be wordy and awkward.  After all, it seems a bit weird to have Johnny come home, then say to himself, "Oh, there's my big, black leather couch under the window."  Instead, think of ways in which Johnny might interact with the couch.  Does he stub a toe on it as he goes past?  Does he fling his jacket onto it?  Shoo his cat off it?  Flop into it after a long day at work?  Any one of these changes the description from passive to active, and active's where it's at.

Passive description example

Johnny opened the door of his apartment and walked in.  There was a big, black leather couch under the window.  The silver blinds were drawn.  The coffee table was piled with newspapers and magazines.

Active description example

Johnny opened the door of his apartment and walked in.  He flung his leather jacket onto the couch under the window, then reached up to open the blinds, much to his cat's delight.  She hopped up onto the back of the black leather couch, surveying the outside world.  Johnny went to drop his keys on the coffee table, then thought better of it.  They just might get lost in the pile of newspapers and magazines.


Keep in mind, both of these are drafts, which I've deliberately left as such.  There's still a considerable amount of tweaking that needs to be done, even with the second example, but both should give you an idea of how to incorporate description more actively into your writing.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Point of view

I spent yesterday evening tinkering with a short story I'd been working on for a while.  Something about it wasn't quite working, and I just couldn't put my finger on it.  If you'd seen me, you might have thought me a bit bonkers, as I paced from one end of the house to the other, manuscript in hand, muttering to myself.

I didn't want to give up on the story, but I also didn't want to completely redraft the entire thing.  I took a close look at a few things, including scene structure and dialogue, but both of these worked.  What wasn't working, however, was the point of view from which the story was written.  There was a lot of action, but I'd originally written the story in third person, which is fairly common.  Shifting things around a bit, I changed it from third person to first person, using "I" and "me" throughout.  A bit more tweaking, and the story read much better.  I'm still not finished with it, but it's now far, far closer to seeing the light of day.

My self-editing advice, thus, for fiction writers is to take a close look at perspective, point of view, and narrative voice.

• Whose perspective are you telling the story from?  Does it work?  Might another character's perspective work better?
• What point of view are you using to tell the story?  If it's first, try third.  If third, try using first. 
• Look at your narrative voice, too.  If you're using third person objective, perhaps try using third person subjective or third person omniscient.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Editing practice

Editing is one of those things that's really hard to teach.  You kind of have to learn by *doing* more than anything.  An ear for language, a good understanding of grammar, and general nit-picky-ness help, too.

I've been dabbling in drabble of late, primarily because I don't seem to have a lot of uninterrupted time in which to write.  I have several longer projects on the go, but was looking for something I could finish in one to two sittings, so I'd at least have *something* done.

Writing drabble is an excellent way to practice your editing skills.  Why?  If you're like me, your first draft (and your second, and your third, and your fourth) will be way over the 100-word limit.  To get your story down to 100 words, you have to look at each and every single word.  Does it belong?  What does it do?  Can one word work where you've got several?  How much can you cut and still keep the essence of the story?  What is the essence of the story, anyway?

More interesting, at least to the grammar geek in me, is that writing in such a short form forces you to interact, on a very intimate level, with the words on the page, and with their underlying structure and function.  You end up engaging with your work so closely that you'll learn a lot about how you write and the types of things (whether literary conventions, words, or phrases) that frequently occur within your writing.  Regardless, I think it's an excellent exercise to expand your editing horizons.  Telling a story in 100 words, exactly, is harder than it looks.

Apparently, I'm technologically challenged

It's coming up on the end of spring grant writing season, which means I've been *very* busy over the last several weeks.  Believe it or not, I had posts scheduled for each week ... but apparently I can't count or something, as I somehow managed to schedule everything for 2014, not 2013.  *sigh*

On another note, I'm currently fighting with my computer, a bare two months old, which has decided it needs to use 87% of its available RAM every time I turn it on.  I'm busy tweaking, but am getting rather irritated with the whole thing.

My point, here, is that I've been sucked into the technology vortex once again.  Don't get me wrong, as I love the tools that technology gives writers, but I sometimes think we spend too much time fussing with the tools, and not enough time writing. 

So this afternoon, while my computer's chewing away at a complete system scan and defrag, I'll be taking a pad of yellow legal paper, an HB pencil, a sharpener, and a good eraser outside with me so I can do some writing the old fashioned way. 

I'll sort through my scheduled posts tomorrow, but for the moment I'm off to do some writing. 

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: A Clear Second Look

If you're like me, you've heard this advice  time and time again.  Once you've finished a piece of writing, you need to set it aside for a while so you can take a clear second look at it.  This is excellent advice, advice I often give to my clients and students ... but it's advice that writers often don't follow (myself included).

My house is crazy-busy most days, and writing time is something I grab where I can during the week.  Weekends are a bit better, but between the laundry, baking, and general household chores that need to be done, I still don't get as much writing time in as I'd like.  This leads to a very time-starved kind of writing, where I'm scrambling to meet deadlines.

I start out with the best of intentions, but sometimes life just interferes.  This week, for example, my writing time has been limited because the youngest (of the broken arm) isn't cleared for outside activities until at least April 23rd, which means no afternoon daycare until at least then.  And without afternoon daycare, and with an increasingly stir-crazy four-year-old, I can honestly say I'm not getting much of anything done unless it's late at night after everything else is done.  Everything I've written this weekend (including this blog post) has depended on my clear second look hack.  Let's take a look, shall we?

A clear second look for the time-starved writer

If I know I'm going to have to edit almost in medias res, I do everything I can to have one writing session first thing in the morning (that's 5:30 around here ... ugh) and another after supper.  This leaves me close to 12 hours between writing sessions.  I'm not going to catch as much as I would if I had days or weeks to put my project aside and then come back to it, but I think I do a fairly good job following this method, and I think you'll be amazed at what you find, even using this time-crunched technique.

1. Split your writing / editing time into two sessions, with at least four hours between chunks.
2. Go do something that's not writing-related in the time between sessions.
3. When you're ready to edit, here's what you're going to do:
1. Print your project off and grab a highlighter or two. (I usually use two colours, one for errors and one for flow.)
2. Read your project aloud (to yourself, the dog, the cat, your imaginary friend ... doesn't matter who.  Just do it.  No cheating!)
4. As you're reading:
1. Highlight any grammatical, spelling, capitalization, and technical style errors.
2. Highlight any passages where flow is off.  These are places where transitions between sentences, ideas, and paragraphs don't quite work, and where characters might be doing one thing, then suddenly veer off in another direction.  
5. Take your marked copy back to the computer and make the necessary changes and revisions.  
6. Repeat the reading aloud process (steps 3 & 4) once more.
7. Cross your fingers that you've caught everything.  ;-)
8. Submit!