Common Problems (Part 25 of 50)

Don't be afraid of contractions. Otherwise, the writing sounds stilted. Write the way people talk.

* Could you not have spared me this disgrace?

* He was not surprised. It was not my first arrest.

* The sailors on that ship did not believe in the God of the Jews.

If you're writing an academic paper, don't use contractions. If you write dialog and want to show a formal, stuffy individual, don't use contractions.

We write for the general public 

and we keep our language informal.

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Cec's new book, Unleash the Writer Within, is now available.

Common Problems (Part 17 of 50)

Watch those dialog attributes. Creative writing teachers tend to urge their students to avoid using the boring word said. Professional writers, however, give exactly the opposite advice.

We do it for two reasons and the first is because said is invisible. So are asked, answered, and replied. Because they are so common, readers scarcely notice.

The second reason to avoid strong attributes is because they take the emphasis off what and put it on how.

• "You will never take me alive!" he yelled.
• "You must never do that again," Ellen remonstrated. 
• "I want my money," he demanded. 

If we write dialog well, readers don't need an attribution to know how to interpret the words.

If you want to emphasize how someone speaks, you do need the right attribute: "I hate you," she purred.

Said is a good dialog attribute; 

it's good because it's invisible.

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Cec's new book, Unleash the Writer Within, is now available. 

Common Problems (Part 11 of 50)

Insert beats (actions or gestures) #1. Beats, when used well, make your dialog stronger and your prose more readable.

It also avoids what we call talking heads. That phrase means two or more people speak but we have no idea where they are, the time of day or year, or whether it's in the present or past.

Here's one piece of dialog from a student: "There’s no place to anchor a tent here and the slope is much too steep. And the snow will continue at least through the night. Too much danger of blowing away! We have to find Kregor and move on. If we don’t find something better, we’ll have to make a serious decision about pitching camp. In the leantime, seconds count." (This went on for four more sentences.)

Here it is again with beats added.

"There’s no place to anchor a tent here, and the slope is much too steep. And the snow will continue at least through the night." He brushed the snow off his face and shook his head wearily. "Too much danger of blowing away. We have to find Kregor and move on."

New paragraph: While the other four people stared at him, their bodies already trembling from the cold, Evan said, "If we don’t find something better, we’ll have to make a serious decision about pitching camp. In the meantime, seconds count."

The second version does two things. First, it gets us out of the talking heads. We now have a sense of the bitterness of the weather. Second, it breaks up the lengthy dialog. I call that breathing space. Readers feel as if they're in the scene by the insertion of brushing off snow, shaking his head, the others trembling from the cold.

When I insert beats into my writing
I add life and energy to my prose.