One trick I use to jump start my editor's brain, is to search for words I know are frequently found in trouble spots. Red flag words. I can clean up those spots and get into the groove of editing, and that puts me in the right mindset to tackle the larger revisions.I'm not going to go into a lot of detail in this post (it's a round-up after all), but there are links to posts that go into more detail with more examples and ways to fix these rough spots.
Telling Red Flags
These are the words that are often found where you're telling instead of showing. Three common types are the motivational tell, the emotional tell. and the descriptive tell.
Motivational tells explain motives, frequently before the character has even made the action. To and when are repeat offenders here.
Bob ran to the shed to get the shotgun.
When Bob ran to the shed for the shotgun, the zombie was already there.
Emotional tells explain feelings. In and with take center stage here.
Bob screamed in fear.
Sally sighed with relief.
Descriptive tells explain actions. These are trickier because they often feel just fine until you notice that you're telling the reader what they should be able to figure out by how the character is acting. Offenders include realize, could see, the sound of, as.
Jane staggered out of the room clutching her side, and Bob realized she'd been hurt.
Bob could see from the way Jane was bleeding that she'd hurt herself.
The sound of a sharp bang echoed across the valley.
As Bob climbed on the roof, the zombie grabbed his foot.
More on telling red flags here.
Placeholder Red Flags
Placeholder words are those that are missed opportunities to flesh out your scene. Adverbs are the number-one offender here. When you see an adverb, there's a good chance that you can improve the section but using details that show what that adverb means.
Bob shook his fist angrily.
Jane moved nervously across the field.
More on making adverbs work for you here.
Bloated Sentence Red Flags
Bloated sentences are those that often read just fine (if they didn't we'd have spotted them already) but can be tightened up to improve the overall novel. Prepositions are often your problem here.
Bob crept through the mud and around to the back of the shed.
Jane ran to the back of the room.
More on prepositions here.
Passive Red Flags
These are hose sentences that feel flat and lifeless, because the subject of the sentence is being acted upon, not doing the acting. Most often it's due to passive "to be" verbs.
Bob was tripped by the severed leg.
Sally was being chased from the angry mob.
More on passive writing here.
Obviously, not every instance of these words is going to be trouble, but they are often found in places that often need a little tweaking. And since this is a round-up post on revisions, here are some other helpful revision posts for your post-NaNo manuscript:
Tips on what to do before you start editing
Tips on polishing your novel and lists of words that spell trouble
Tips on eliminating places where you're overstating things
Tips on how to revise that first draft
And of course, for specific trouble spots you can also check out the labels (on the left, scroll down under the book covers) to find more info on tons of editing subjects.
23 comments:
Thanks for pointing out the red flags. Showing and not telling is something that troubles me, so it's always good to have some kind of reference. The more I write, the more I'm able to catch it, though.
Wow! Looks like I have some problems I didn't know I had. :) Thanks for the great info!
These are great reminders- thanks so much for posting this!
PS- Would you please do another post or two on revision after the New Year? I'll bet a lot of the NaNo people will be letting their manuscripts rest during December, so January would be a good "get-in-shape" month (both manuscript-wise and physically--unfortunately, I'm anticipating the usual holiday five-pound gain). Thanks again :)
This is a truly fantastic post. I'm sure you've heard of Wordle but in case anyone here hasn't,
here's how to use it.
This is exactly what I needed. My ms is exploding with "was"'ssss all over the place. Argh....Love the examples too.
Great post, Janice! *heads over to twitter to share*
Jessica
One thing I love about you Janice is that you know your stuff. I don't think I could have written a post like this because I wouldn't be able to recognize some! *running off to read and study up*
This blog is a treasure trove of good advice made usable! Thank you again!
Melissa: That's exactly how this list came to be. Years ago I started making a "double check" list to remind myself of things to watch out for. Eventually I taught myself not to use them as much and my writing improved. I'm sure yours will too!
Deborah: I hope that's not a bad thing, LOL.
Jess: I do a post on revisions every Wednesday, so there's always lots of editing ideas available. But I love the idea of a get in shape post in January! Thanks.
Phillip: Never heard of Wordle, and the link didn't work. Re-post the address?
E.Arroyo: Great timing then! Was isn't such a bad word on it's on, but it hangs out with some bad dudes sometimes.
Coffeelvnmom: Thanks!
Sierra: Thanks! These things are years in the making. I save good tips, make templates and lists, keep notes, etc. My writing files are full of things. A lot of tricks I came up with when I was teaching online classes, and some posts actually came from my lectures there. You see a lot more when you're actively keeping an eye out for stuff to blog abut, too :)
Ben: Most welcome. Always happy to help.
Bookmarked that post, for later use >:)
Cold As Heaven
This is a great post, Janice! I will bookmark this for future (near future) reference. One I don't quite get though is this:
As Bob climbed on the roof, the zombie grabbed his foot.
I'm not sure how that shows motivation. To me it just shows two actions happening at the same time. I could see the other two because you're telling Bob's motivation (to get the shotgun) but with this sentence alone, I don't see the same thing. Maybe I'm not thinking of it in the right way??
Hi Janice,
Thanks for these revision tips, they're helping me edit smarter, more efficient,and faster. Did I mention faster? Who wouldn't love that combo?
Cold As Heaven: Cool! I Have a whole slew of those myself.
Angie: You are totally right, great catch. There are was to use as in a motivational way, but I guess I didn't get a good example. I've moved it to the descriptive flag section :)
Taurean: That's awesome! Faster is good when it comes to edits.
This is incredibly helpful--thank you so much for posting! I'm going to share this with my critique group tonight :)
Perfect timing! Thank you!
Great summary, thanks Janice!
*Ahem* At the risk of drawing ire:
"Bob was tripped by the severed leg." IS passive voice - the severed leg is doing the tripping, not Bob.
"Sally was running from the angry mob." IS NOT passive voice, it's imperfect tense. Passive voice would be:
"Sally was being chased by the angry mob."
HOWEVER, imperfect tense is often better replaced by simple past, e.g.
"Sally ran from the mob."
Imperfect tense is OK when describing an ongoing action:
"Sally was washing the dishes when the phone rang."
OK, grammar nazi rant over... :)
I bookmarked this post for future reference - there's so much here to work from! I've used some of these red flags myself, sometimes with the mental note "I know I'll be changing this later..."
Thanks for posting!
Rachel, Anna & Matthew: Most welcome!
Anne: No ire here, I do make mistakes, and I appreciate it when folks let me know so I can correct them. :) I really need to stop using was running as an example. Gerunds are tough because there are places (as you showed) where it's fine. I did mention that on the post that's linked to under that example.
Elizabeth: "I'll change it later" is such a great tool. Make a note, then move on. That might be a good post, actually. :) Thanks!
Another grammar nazi here.
You headed the section Passive Writing, not Passive Voice. I'm not at all fond of it, but I've come to accept that some people use 'passive writing' as an umbrella term for several types of weak sentence construction, so I was willing to let the "was running" example go without comment.
OTOH, "These are those sentences that feel flat and lifeless, because the subject of the sentence is being acted upon, not doing the acting" describes passive voice, but "To be verbs are recurring problems" is back to passive writing again.
I think it's worthwhile to maintain the distinction: Passive voice is a very specific grammatical term with a very specific definition, while passive writing is a general term with fuzzy edges.
PS. The More on passive writing link goes to a post about prepositions.
Fennel: Fixed, and thanks again. I did mean more of the general "passive writing" than the specific, but passive verbs tend to be a big culprit there, as I wasn't as clear as I should have been. And this is also something that I can do, but I obviously still goof up while trying to help others get it. (grin)
One of my grammar guru's want to write a guest post on "passive" and help clear up the difference between the various uses of the word in writing? Or just send me some good info on the grammar side and I'll slip it in with a general post of the different types. I think we could all (myself included) use a good definitive guide for this sucker.
Yes. I went back and back on my galleys to work out the "bad" words/phrases. I suspect I didn't find all of them, but I tried. It's amazing in a 70,000 word document how many times you can read through it and find something you missed!
I STILL find things I wish I could change in my published novels ;) I think it's the bane of writers everywhere, hehe.
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