Saturday, October 23, 2010

Tightening Up Your Manuscript


I've been doing some heavy editting, as well as some heavy reading. I shouldn't have printed my manuscript out on 20 pound paper. But I digest. *burp* Excuse me.

While I was revising, I discovered something... and it's really helped in pruning my novel. It concerns emotions in the form of facial expressions. This is something I over use SO much. But in the books I've been reading, facial expressions that portray emotion are toned way down. Instead, different story elements are used to get that emotion to the reader.

Examples:

1.) Instead of something like: 'Her honest eyes made it seem as though she believed me, but her runny nose gave away the truth', you could get this across with dialogue, maybe this girl stutters when she lies. Or with action, like when she blows her nose, everyone knows she's not telling the truth.

2.) Or instead of 'His facial expression morphed into anger', try some action; 'He clenched his jaw so tight it caused tobacco to dribble down his chin. Using a stiff finger, he slathered the lumpy brown goop back into his mouth and spat it on me'.

3.) Or instead of 'When she took his popcorn, she noticed his eyes go wide'. How about some dialogue: 'Gimme my popcorn, Grandma! You old bag!"

But remember, sometimes you HAVE to go into your character's head in order to get his/her's emotion across to the reader. Why? Because some charcters don't show emotion. Need an example? Okay.

Let's say your protag is an elderly Scotsman who spends his days standing along the side of the road, smoking homemade cigarettes. The guy keeps everything inside, bottled up tight. His expression NEVER changes. Even if a car came careening right at him, he still wouldn't show his feelings.

What? You think a protag like that is unrealistic? Whatever!





But back to the topic of character emotions, there are only so many ways to get feelings across by describing facial expressions and eye movements. And isn't that sort of like TELLING the reader instead of SHOWING the reader anyway?

So after you finish that first or second draft, go through the book specifically looking for these types of descriptions and see if you can eliminate a few, replace them with action, dialogue or something else. It will make your book read faster by getting rid of these reduntant elements.

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