Welcome to Author Dock 4.0

I’ve done a lot of critiquing, beta reading, and professional editing, so I’ve had the privilege of working with people who write in all different styles and genres. Each style and genre has its own rules, and I’ve learned to appreciate them all on their own merits. There’s a lot of writing advice that doesn’t take into account the different standards and styles between genres. Some of it makes me want to headbutt the person giving it, because it amounts to a style critique rather than sound writing advice, especially if applied indiscriminately. This sort of writing advice can impede creativity.

There is other advice, however, that works across all styles and genres. I'm going to outline some of the tips and tricks I use when writing and editing my own work as well as clients’ work. It’s the stuff that always seems to make writing better (although there are exceptions…like when I was writing Justin’s schizophrenic character voice in The Other Place Series. There are times to break every rule, as long as you’re doing it mindfully).

So, with that small caveat, here are six things I’ve found (almost) always improve writing:

1. Avoid dialogue tags whenever possible.¶

If you only have two people in the conversation, you don’t need a dialogue tag with every line of dialogue, because readers understand who’s talking as long as they’re oriented now and again.
You can also use action tags in the place of dialogue tags. Action tags usually precede the dialogue (though they can come after), and describe something a character is doing while they speak. Action tags are super great because they can perform quadruple duty: let us know who is speaking, develop character, create a mood or vibe, and put a vivid image in the reader’s mind. For instance:

“I just don’t know,” Marla said.

As opposed to:

Marla chiseled the dried blood from beneath her fingernails with her hunting knife. “I just don’t know.”

Be careful, however, of overusing dialogue tags like she smiled, or she cocked an eyebrow. I’m guilty of overusing these. Often, they don’t add anything, and/or are already implied by the dialogue.

2. Adjectives and adverbs are okay; redundancy isn’t.¶

If the adjective or adverb is already implied by the scene, dialogue, or action, you don’t need to use it. For instance:
The bright Southern California sun shone intensely on their faces.

Neither bright nor intensely are really needed here (because they’re implied by SoCal sun), and don’t add much as to style, either. You probably don’t even need on their faces in most cases, if you want to get technical.

Or:
“We need to get out of here!” she yelled urgently.

You really just need the dialogue here. Very few people would exclaim such a thing languorously, and if they were, it would be very appropriate to use that adverb—especially because languorously is a bitchin’ word.

However:
He leaned on the dented bumper of his car, eyeing her lustily.

Both dented and lustily add something here, if we don’t already know those things from context.

3. Description is fine, but diagraming is generally not.¶

I love it when the author gives me a bizarre, beautiful, or bleak image that sticks with me. However, I get really confused and any image in my head is destroyed whenever I read something like this:

The house was three stories tall, with three rows of five windows off to the right of the main entrance, and three rows of eight windows to the left of the entrance. The front door was tall and stately, a double door, with carved frescoes of cherubs and nymphs all along the edges. Inside, a hallway led off in front to the state rooms. Another to the right led to the ballroom …

You get what I’m going for.

The point of description is to give readers an image, and a mood. You can do this succinctly, and let their imaginations fill in the rest—that’s part of the fun of reading. In the passage above, the writer can convey the image of a grand, old-style mansion with little images dropped here and there throughout the dialogue and action, preferably when the characters interact with the graceful draperies or display of jade fertility carvings. We don’t need a layout of the house, especially all at once.

4. Inner dialogue and exposition are fine, but be careful of telling the reader stuff they already know, or don’t need to know.¶

He pressed his lips to hers. She gave a little gasp, and her body melted into his. I want him so badly, she thought. I’ve never felt like this before about anyone.

Now, you can get away with a lot of inner dialogue and exposition in romance, but in the above passage we don’t need that inner thought at all. Even if we do perhaps, in some cases, need to see that thought once, we don’t need it every time he kisses her. We actually feel the moment and the romantic tension more if the inner dialogue is mostly implied by the characters and the situation, and left to the imagination.

Also, giving expository backstory or detail that doesn’t play into the story is a double no-no. Backstories on minor characters that only appear once in the book; memories of events that aren’t relevant; long descriptions of job duties when the novel takes place while the character is on vacation—these sorts of things are dead weight that slow pacing and bore readers.

5. You don’t need to say something using the fewest words possible, but avoid repeating yourself, or telling something you’ve already shown.¶

Some people can go on and on and on without losing the reader, because their style is engaging for one reason or another. But, even if you’re prone to wordiness, you don’t need to say things more than once. For instance:
She drove quickly down the road. She was in a hurry. She was late for a meeting, and would be in trouble with her boss.

Those three sentences basically convey the same idea a bunch of times. You could say the same thing by showing her honking her horn and swearing at traffic, and letting us know by context that she’s on her way to a meeting. Or you could say something like:
She drove like a maniac to get to the meeting.

Another example:
She hated chocolate pie. She poked at it with her fork, wrinkling her nose. “I hate chocolate pie.”

You really just need the action there. You could also have the dialogue if character-appropriate, but the first sentence should never be there. It just tells before it shows, and thus reduces the impact of showing.

6. Avoid sensory words such as “saw” “heard” “smelled” or “felt” as much as possible.¶

This is the hardest one for some people. The trick here is to put the reader in the story by describing what’s going on instead of saying so-and-so saw or heard it going on. For instance:

Jeremy smelled jasmine.

As opposed to:

The scent of jasmine embraced him.

The second makes you feel more like you’re there, right?

Sometimes you do need the sensory tag for emphasis; for instance, if your main character is in the other room and can’t see the door opening, you can’t say the door opened. You have to say* they heard the door opening*…or you could say The door creaked as it opened, or something, if appropriate.

Also, I say someone saw something when I want to make it clear they're noticing something they were not meant to notice:

John saw Fred tuck his shirt over the butt of his pistol.

That makes it clearer that it didn’t just happen, it happened surreptitiously. Even in these situations, you can sometimes remove the sensory tag:

Fred quickly tugged his shirt over the butt of his pistol, then smiled wide at the approaching cop.

The “feel” tag is harder to remove. It’s best if you can write the scene so it’s obvious what someone would be feeling. If you’ve done your character development, scene setting, and dialogue right, this is often possible. But, at times, you really do have to say things like:

George felt like she’d hung him by his nuts from the flagpole.

There’s no other way to get the point across and keep the reader along for the ride.

What writing tips and tricks do you use? I’d love to hear them. I’d also love to argue with you if you don’t agree with some of mine. :)

Elizabeth Roderick is a freelance editor, and the author of many strange novels. You can find her on Amazon.