Making it More

[Holoman]

Okay, this isn't picking on Brandon (his writing isn't bad, don't get me wrong, I own some of his stuff... all writers have weaknesses) so I'm not picking on him, I'm just pointing out one thing quick like... suddenly, suddenly, finally, began, began, began... basically speaking he uses clunky adverbs and motion killers (began) more than necessary.

NOW! If I were picking on him, which I am not, I wouldn't do that seeing as I said I stopped doing that, I would point out that in one piece of his writing a door "began to crack" twice in 3 paragraphs... the same door mind you. At least as far as I can tell. Either way, the echo is weak.

THIS would be picking on him, heh heh.

Ah I hadn't even noticed things like this. To be honest I don't much mind words like suddenly, in moderation. I did catch a few typos in his books though which break my immersion more than anything, but I'm pretty forgiving with how books are written as long as I can follow what is happening without effort.

I tend to switch off the critical part of my brain when I read lol, and try to dumb myself down a bit and not try to guess things. I enjoy it when I get taken by surprise by twists and the unexpected.

 

[Svrtnsse]

So what's a good way to add a bit of additional depth to your writing. What's a trick you employ to push your text a little further?

 

[Chessie]

So what's a good way to add a bit of additional depth to your writing. What's a trick you employ to push your text a little further?

^This is why it's important to read for enjoyment. We pick up the things that work to entertain us and pass them along in our own work. It's a fun and simple way to improve our writing in general.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

A lot is instinct but...

One strategy is to search out adverbs... let's say you have a "superbly crafted longsword"...

Kill that adverb, tell us what makes it superbly crafted. Use adverbs outside dialogue for flags where you can add detail.

So what's a good way to add a bit of additional depth to your writing. What's a trick you employ to push your text a little further?

 

[FifthView]

... the character has a history. A past. An education (whatever that may be). The filter that processes their world is missing from the descriptions so they come off shallow and sparse.

This is something that I find incredibly difficult to do: Maintaining that character filter while writing.

It's much simpler to put myself in the head of a character who is experiencing events "in the moment." The physical sensations, the general* attitude toward what is immediate (happening right now), are easy things. But to write with a filter that incorporates all of a character's past life....? So much more difficult to do. That past life will have included some formulation of a personal philosophy, attitudes toward others' personal philosophies, subjective reactions–perhaps even myopic reactions, or irrational reactions–to so many events that have happened in that character's past. Keeping all of that coherent and meaningful, keeping it all in my head, is far more difficult than describing an immediate sensation of fear or heat/coldness, etc.

*By general attitudes I'm referring to the immediate attitudes toward people and events. Ex.: An irritating person who happens to be ugly might illicit an ephemeral reaction–"That cow!" But although this might be informed by who knows what from a past experience, it's not that kind of filter I think you are describing. And to be quite honest, I think that a lot of newer writers use the extremely tight, intimate, "in the moment" 3rd person or 1st person approach as a crutch, as if those immediate attitudes, when delivered up the the reader, can "pass" for depth.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes. I find it terribly challenging as well.

When I look at the Odd Thomas section I posted earlier I just feel like there is so much there. Like, I feel like the character of Odd Thomas has had these thoughts before about physics and physicists and he is skeptical of science because he has this uncanny ability to see the supernatural, and it all fits together to expand his POV. Odd Thomas is basically 'telling' us what he thinks and feels... he is 'telling' us the story as if we were sitting at a table at a bar... cracking jokes and giving insights to his past and his opinions.

Which I find very interesting, and it is why I struggle so much with "show, don't tell". It is like the Sanderson post that Dem made... it seems like there are so many rules, but all the big guys break the rules left right and center and "Show, don't tell" seems to be one of those rules that are more of a guideline... Or I just prefer that sort of narrative.

Another one of my favorites is American God's by Neil Gaiman which starts out with:

Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-****-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.

The best thing - in Shadow's opinion, perhaps the only good thing - about being in prison was a feeling of relief. The feeling that he'd plunged as low as he could plunge and he'd hit bottom. He didn't worry that the man was going to get him, because the man had got him. He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, because yesterday had brought it.

It did not matter, Shadow decided, if you had done what you had been convicted of or not.

Note how there is not a single action in the entire three opening paragraph? And it goes on like this for a few pages before we actually see Shadow doing something. Gaiman could have started with:

"Shadow lay on the hard prison cot, flipping a quarter in his large hand."

But he didn't. He gave more. Waaaaaaaaaay more. More insight. More POV, through telling.

I find this whole thing very fascinating and it is a phenomenon I'm trying desperately to understand.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Knowing when and where and why to break the rules is the eternal mystery, LOL. Study all the rules, then make your own rules, stick to those, and hope someone agrees with you enough to pay you, heh heh.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I like to think of the rules as a kind of prepackaged understanding.
The dynamics of reading can be very complicated, so until you've got a good grasp on how it works, the rules of writing do the understanding for you.

Understanding how readers take on board and process information is, I think, an essential skill for a writer. If we can figure that out we can apply the knowledge it gives us to our writing, making the story behind the words more accessible to the readers.

So I think it's just not about learning and understanding the rules, but also about understanding the reason for the rules and what following the rules is meant to achieve. Extract the understanding, if you will.

 

[Chessie]

Just my 2 cents but I think that the reason why so many big names break the writing "rules" beginning writers struggle with is because they know what's really important: writing a story readers want to read. This depends on genre, the author hitting genre tropes, prose that is engaging and communicable, etc. Plus they have deadlines and waiting fans to worry about.

There are no rules in writing, only guidelines in place to help us have boundaries between poor writing and strong writing. A writer who knows what he's doing will seem to break all the rules when really they recognize their own voice and patterns of their process. My opinion is that these little things we worry about are so trivial when compared to characterization and storytelling in general. As an author, my priority is the story. Period.

When you (general you) wonder how you'll handle all the little things and oh, maybe they plotted for months before writing in order to get all of that information in there...no. That's not necessarily the case. It's impossible to get it all in there in one go before writing. It takes several passes of a manuscript to add things, change things, smooth things, etc and even then it won't be perfect. How did big name authors make it so far? By writing and not letting the minutiae bother them. It's about telling fans a story, not boring them with perfect prose.

 

[Chessie]

Knowing when and where and why to break the rules is the eternal mystery, LOL. Study all the rules, then make your own rules, stick to those, and hope someone agrees with you enough to pay you, heh heh.

I would even go so far as to say that eventually we reach a place in our skill where we don't even recognize we're breaking rules. What do you think?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

There are writers who got where they are by every conceivable path, but by all means lots of them were concerned about minutia. Writers are rather known for suffering over individual word choices, which really fits minutia to the T.

Sanderson mentions going over adverbs quite specifically in his BYU lectures, looking for stronger ways to say things. This from a guy who is not adverb averse.

As far as breaking the rules and not noticing because one is beyond that? Not me. Not in edit mode. First draft? I throw a lot of junk around, but assuming I'm aware of a rule that isn't really a rule anyhow, I hope to notice. I hope to have intended to do so in the first place. Of course self-editing is a difficult task so things get missed. I'm sure this is to the individual, some folks don't sweat stuff and get away with it, others don't sweat it and fail. But far as I'm concerned better to sweat the details and fail than to not sweat the details and fail, it leaves the mystery of "If I'd just..."

But the only real "rules" I recognize are grammatical, but bad grammar (such as dangling participles) can totally screw the meaning of the sentence or force a reader to double back and reread things. I have personal rules, involving adverbs and active (not just in respect to passive... such as began) that I follow, as well as vague and filler words, because I recognize them as weak and I don't want my prose cluttered by them, but these are mine own decrees unbreakable... to the best of my ability, heh heh. Or, certain character voices, my vampire comedy will probably break my personal code here and there staying in voice when I get to writing it.

 

[FifthView]

Ron, at the next table, wasn’t having much more luck.

‘Wingardium Leviosa!’ he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

‘You’re saying it wrong,’ Harry heard Hermione snap. ‘It’s Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the “gar” nice and long.’

'Yes, I know,' Ron snarled, and kept flicking, stabbing, and slashing his windmill. 'But everyone knows the best wizards don't follow rules!'

 

[Svrtnsse]

That's because real wizards know that magic is about more than just words. - Or something. I'm not up to scratch with the exact workings of that setting.

 

[Chessie]

We're all word wizards, right? Onward to the thesaurus palace!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

A few more quotes and you will have doubled the Harry Potter I've read, heh heh. Very short books as I recall.

Ron, at the next table, wasn’t having much more luck.

‘Wingardium Leviosa!’ he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

‘You’re saying it wrong,’ Harry heard Hermione snap. ‘It’s Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the “gar” nice and long.’

'Yes, I know,' Ron snarled, and kept flicking, stabbing, and slashing his windmill. 'But everyone knows the best wizards don't follow rules!'

 

[FifthView]

A few more quotes and you will have doubled the Harry Potter I've read, heh heh. Very short books as I recall.

Full disclosure: That last bit, Ron's words, are my creation, playing off the real scene, and not from the book!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I will add it to my HP word count anyhow,

Full disclosure: That last bit, Ron's words, are my creation, playing off the real scene, and not from the book!