People often ask what advice I can give them to help promote their writing career. The following assumes you know how to write. These are ways to take that short story or novel an clean it up.
One: beware the verb "to be." Learn to eradicate it whenever possible. Don't become anal about it, though. I mean, we don't want to exterminate "to be" from the English language. Just realize this world contains a plethora of descriptive verbs waiting for us writers to manipulate them like tools. Using "to be" tempts a writer to fall back into lazy styles: simple words, writing without thought, and the dreaded passive voice. The next thing you know, your work sounds like an eighth grader typed it up while using meth. Passive tense haunts me, and I constantly fight the urge.
How do you prevent this habit? By using something you probably never leaned in high school: E-Prime. It forces writers to really think about what words we use. Often, we write simply to get words out of our heads before the concept vanishes. In moments like that, we forget what we learned in school and go barbaric, chaotic. E-Prime forces us back into a study of words. Just try it. Take a short story or poem and go psycho with E-Prime. Give the proverbial birdie to Shakespeare's "to be or not to be." Be creative! I bet the weaknesses in your work will jump at you like monkeys at a banana-scented tourist.
Two, for god's sake, people, learn to establish and stick to a verb tense. I had a college professor who pointed this out to me rather harshly, in front of the whole class, then spent the rest of the night going over basic grammar because obviously none of us knew anything and we were all as juvenile as 2nd graders. You think middle school kids can be cruel, imagine a forum filled with college students glaring at you because you made some taboo mistake and now they ALL are paying by the most hideously boring class in the history of college-dom. I've never made the mistake again. Don't suddenly say "They went to the fair, but he forgets his glasses." Went implies past, they already visited that fair, like yesterday, or last century. Forgets implies present. See the clash? In a creative writing class, they called me the Tense Terror and Grammar Goblin because I jumped on peoples' cases about keeping stories in the proper verb tense. It's easy to break the habit and it will improve the quality of your writing ten fold. Congrats, you now write like an 8th grader is SUPPOSE to!!!
Three, even if it's just dialog, make it descriptive. He said/she said grows boring after a page or two. Use a thesaurus if you must, but make the audience see your characters' faces. I imagine I'm a director and I want these actors to really understand the character in that moment.
1) "I can't believe it," he said. --- boooring
2) "I can't believe it," he cried out in disbelief. --- eh, getting there
3) His eyes opened wide as his mouth unhinged, as if opening it wider would allow him to ingest the wonder before him, or at the least vomit it back up into something resembling logic. "I can't believe it," he muttered numbly, not caring if it sounded so cliche that he would have been jeered out of a drama class.
You got the idea? Dialog is not the time for writers to take a creative break. Yes, there are times when the punchy, fast jabs back and forth work for showing the wit between two characters, but eventually your reader will imagine two spotlighted characters on a propless stage, not an heiress to a kingdom who turns into a unicorn.
Four, make all events in the story relevant. I have a problem with this, merely because I write a great part, then forget what happened. Please, don't spend five chapters writing an awesome scene, only to have it so disjunct that you could scrap it and it won't change the book one bit. Your universe! Make it meaningful and fun.
Five, write your synopsis way in advance. Now, I'm one to write outlines and then throw them out the window, but at least know sort of what you want to do. Otherwise (and yes, this happened to me too) you get this awesome first five chapters, then hit a brick wall. What is the hero supposed to do with his stolen dragon egg? Nurrr... I dunno... Story gets shelved, byebye idea.
Six, realize you will likely write the beginning last, so don't sweat it. If you can totally visualize sections, feel free to write them out and keep the notes all together. Work out a character sheet. Yeah, sort of D&D, but it totally helps. What color of eyes? (I learned that when my character went through 3 eye colors and two hair colors). Does he have hobbies? Can you work that in? Strengths? Weakness? All main characters have weaknesses. Even Superman did, right? It makes them believable.
Well, I can think of many other things that make the difference between okay writing and something that will have the NY Times screaming in bold caps, "RIVITING!" but, I don't want to write much more or I'll never get back to my nanowrimo novel. I'll leave you with this final bit of writing advice that works wonders. To quote Mark Twain: "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."
Happy writing!
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