Sunday Writing Tip: A Trick for Finding Overused Words in Your Manuscript

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your manuscript to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week’s tip is a bit different, but one I find incredibly useful. It’s my favorite trick to easily spot specific words or phrases.

To find all occurrences of a single word in a manuscript, do a search for it and replace it with the same word in bold and red.

That makes whatever you’re searching for pop out. Not only will it be easier to find, you’ll be able to clearly see how many times you’ve used that word of phrase on a page. The bold red stands out even when you zoom out of the page and can’t read the exact words anymore.

Sunday Writing Tip: Add Tension to the First Line of Every Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at the opening line of each scene and chapter and make sure it has enough tension in it to draw readers into the scene.

We’ve looked at our scene openings before, but this time, let’s pat particular attention to the first line. Even if the scene itself has a hook, does the opening line have enough tension to get readers to that hook?

Sunday Writing Tip: Remove Unnecessary Dialogue from Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your manuscript to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at the dialogue in your scenes and remove what’s not needed.

There’s often a lot of empty dialogue in scenes, especially the beginnings of them. Characters greet each other and make small talk before they get to the meat of their conversations. Most of the time, that small talk weakens the scene and hurts the pacing.

It’s also common to find characters saying too much in a scene and giving away all the mystery and/or tension. They’re too open about their feelings, or too self-aware about how they feel. They might also answer questions just because the plot needs them to, when being true to themselves and staying quiet makes for a stronger story.

As they say, less is more, and that’s particularly true with dialogue.

Sunday Writing Tip: Show What Your Characters Are Afraid Of

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, think about what scares your characters, and where they worry in your scenes, and make sure readers can see that, too.

Fear is a great motivator, and often our characters are acting out of fear, or because they worry about terrible consequences.

It’s also a useful way to show the stakes in a scene, as characters typically worry about the things they might lose. And when characters worry, so do readers.

For more on adding fear (and this stakes and even tension) in your novel, try these articles:

• Creepy Clowns and Haunted Hotels—Unspooling Why Our Characters Get Scared
• Psychological Trump Cards That Cripple Us
• What Are Your Characters Ashamed Of?
• What Makes Your Characters Uncomfortable?
• Writing the Terror Scenes
• Why Every Writer Should Watch “Mama”
• Using Vocal Cues to Show Hidden Emotion
• 5 Ways to Convey Emotions in Your Novel
• Brainstorming Your Character's Emotional Wound

Sunday Writing Tip: Make Your Characters Vulnerable

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make your characters vulnerable. 

For compassionate people, seeing someone’s vulnerability tugs at our heartstrings and makes us connect, and even care. But in our haste to make our protagonist “heroic,” we sometimes forget to make them vulnerable, too.

Look for moments in your story where a character can exhibit vulnerability. Pay particular attention to highly emotional scenes, or scenes where you want to surprise readers.

Sunday Writing Tip: Check for Cardboard Conflict

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, examine your novel’s conflicts and make sure they’re not flimsy as paper.

“Your scene needs conflict” is something writers hear all the time, and while it’s true, it’s also easy to throw in a conflict just to have one. Problem is, that conflict doesn’t serve the story or accomplish the things a good scene conflict is supposed to do.

Check your scenes for conflict, but also really look at each conflict. Is it something that’s truly a problem to overcome that will affect the story, plot, or character in some way, or is it simply a flimsy obstacle that lets you say, “Yes, there’s conflict here?”

Sunday Writing Tip: Cut Unnecessary Internalization From Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check your scenes are remove any unnecessary internal thoughts.

Last week you added thoughts where they were needed, but this week, let’s focus on places where you’ve gone a little too far and let those thoughts ramble a bit.

A common place to to find unneeded thoughts is when there’s a lot of text between lines of dialogue—especially between a question asked and answered, or two statements made by the same character.

Sunday Writing Tip: Add More Internalization to Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check each scene for internalization. Are your characters sharing enough of their thoughts?

Last week, you added more emotion to your scenes. Emotion and internalization are often found together, so let’s build on that this week. Check your scenes and make sure you have enough internalization to show what the characters are thinking and feeling.

Aim for a good balance between thoughts that illustrate the character and how they feel about the situation, and the action and dialogue of the scene. While you don’t want a character who never shares their thoughts, you also don’t want one who’s too much in their head.

Sunday Writing Tip: Add More Emotion to Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, go through each scene and find three places where you can add or deepen the emotion.

Unless you’re writing a heavily plot-driven genre (such as a thriller or procedural), getting emotion into the story is vital. The more your readers connect emotionally with your characters, the more likely they are to love the book. “Not caring” is a big reason readers put a book down.

Sunday Writing Tip: Is Your Antagonist Plausibly Motivated?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at your antagonist(s) and ensure he or she has solid and believable motivations for their role in the story.

In many ways, the antagonist is the one who causes a novel to happen. If they weren’t doing something wrong, the protagonist would have nothing to do and no reason to act.

But it’s not uncommon to find antagonists who are “being bad” just because the plot needs a bad guy. They have no true motivations to act, no personally driven goals, and a plan that doesn’t really extend past “do something evil the protagonist can thwart.”

Pretend the antagonist was the protagonist for a minute. Do they have reasons that are just as strong as the real protagonist? Or are they acting just to be bad?

Sunday Writing Tip: Examine Your Protagonist’s Motivations

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make sure your protagonist has strong, clear, and plausible motivations for acting in the novel.

A common early draft issue is a protagonist who has no real reason to do the thing they’re supposed to do in the story. They act out plot because the story needs then to do it, not because something real is driving them.

Examine the motives and reasons why your characters are acting in your novel. Make sure they have believable reason to want to solve the problems they face, both for the main core conflict, as well as the smaller conflicts they face on a scene by scene basis.

Sunday Writing Tip: Check Your Subtext: Say More with Less

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look for moments that would be stronger by not stating the emotions and/or thoughts outright.

Subtext is a powerful tool, but also a tricky one, especially in an early draft when we’re still trying to figure out the story. But often, what’s not being said has far more impact on the reader. Good subtext can heighten tensions, create conflict, and even deepen characterization.

Take some time today to look for scenes that could benefit from a little less clarity about how the characters feel and what they think. Rewrite those moments so the subtext carries those emotions and thoughts instead.

Sunday Writing Tip: Make Sure Your Protagonist Isn’t a Perfect Mary Sue/Gary Stu Character

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make sure your protagonist isn’t too perfect.

The Mary Sue/Gary Stu character is the one who always knows exactly what to do in any situation, has no flaws, no bad habits, and rarely runs into any real trouble—and when they do, events align just as they need them to to get out of it.

Too-perfect characters are boring to read about, because there is no struggle and no real conflict. Readers know very early on that whatever problem Mary or Gary face, they’ll overcome it with little to no effort. Most of the time, other characters go out of their way to help them, even if they have reason to.

Take some time today and make sure that things aren’t too easy for your protagonist, and that they do have flaws and issues that cause them to struggle to achieve their goals.

Sunday Writing Tip: Reveal Something New in Every Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check every scene and make sure readers are learning something new about the story, world, or characters.

One way to keep hooking readers in a novel is to reveal something new about the story. Maybe it’s a bit of character history or a not-yet-seen aspect of their personalities, perhaps it’s something about the world, or even how the story mechanics work if it’s science fiction or fantasy. It could even be the revelation of a secret—either the answer to one or that one exists.

It doesn’t have to me a major book-shattering reveal, as long as something is learned that lets readers further immerse themselves in your story and world.

Sunday Writing Tip: Make Sure You Escalate Your Stakes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check your major plot turning points and make sure the stakes go up each time.

A lack of escalating stakes can make a novel feel static or even boring. As things in your plot get worse, you want the stakes to rise as well, matching the ever-worsening problems in the story. Rising stakes help with pacing, with making readers care, and with giving the story a sense of urgency.

Sunday Writing Tip: Identify What Changes in Every Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make sure something changes in every scene.

A red flag for a slow or lackluster story is that the plot never advances. Scenes unfold, but nothing about the events in that scene have any affect on the protagonist or the problem at hand.

Something should change in the scene to show why that scene is there. The change might be the direction of the story, an attitude of a character, a belief, the direction of the plot, the emotional state of the protagonist, the stakes, the goal, the motivation for that goal, an understanding about the world or setting, and so on.

Sunday Writing Tip: Are You Using Enough Sensory Details in Your Descriptions?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check how many senses you're using when you describe things in a scene.

It's easy to remember sight and sound, since characters look at and listen to the world around them. But what about smell? Touch? Taste? You can flesh out a setting by adding sensory details. While not every description will need to use all five senses, catching a whiff of a scent instead of seeing what's causing the smell can be more powerful. Smell also triggers memories, so it's a great tool for when a character needs to remember something.

Check out your scenes, especially any setting descriptions. Try to use each of the five senses at least once in your descriptions.

Sunday Writing Tip: Make Sure Your Characters Have Their Own Voices

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check the voices of your main characters and make sure they all have unique voices

If you can hand lines of dialogue to another character and they read just fine no matter who says them, the characters might not be individuals yet—or their dialogue isn’t reflecting that individuality. While not every single line has to sound different, each character ought to have traits unique to them and voice that shows who they are.

Sunday Writing Tip: Fix Incorrect I versus Me Issues

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, search for I and me and fix any incorrect usages

There’s a bit of a misconception that it should always be “Bob and I…” when choosing between I and me, but that’s not true. There are plenty of instances when me is correct.

An easy test to determine if you need I or me: Reduce the sentence to just the I part. For example:

Bob and I went to the store = I went to the store. I is the correct usage, as Me went to the store is clearly wrong.

Meet Bob and I at the store = Meet I at the store. Me would be the correct usage here, with meet me at the store.

Sunday Writing Tip: Examine Your Turning Points

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at each major turning point in your plot and make sure it advances the story the way you want it to.

While it’s okay to ignore structure and even plot in a first draft, on draft two, you really need to start nailing down what the plot is and how it unfolds. It’s not uncommon to discover the first draft wanders a bit and doesn’t hit the plot marks it ought to for the strongest story and pacing.

Identify your major turning points and make sure they’re building upon each other to form the plot. What structure you use is up to you, as is what specific points you choose, but every story is going to have a beginning—middle—ending, which means problem discovered—attempt to solve problem—resolution of problem.