When you've been editing your own work for any length of time, you begin
to notice certain things that may be unique to your own writing style
that you have to batter away with a leaf blower just to have a
salvageable draft. I'm not talking about "passive voice", "adverbs",
"dialogue tags", or the dozens of little things we're cautioned to watch
out for when editing our own or others' works. I'm talking about the
writing quirks, the crutches, the things that if anybody caught you
repeatedly doing it they would never let you live it down. In my craze
this month to edit as much as I can of CROSS//Rebirth to get it off to
beta, I've noticed some certain things I've had to CTRL+F for to search
and destroy until only one or two remain in a chapter (I usually have
long chapters, so one or two is usually find imo.)
- "sigh". All my characters are always sighing, and of course it's
usually not necessary. This is a habit I picked up years and years ago
as a crutch to display dissatisfaction, eventual fatigue, or as a way to
change a character's thoughts or switch POV. I've finally stopped
actually writing it so much, but it still abounds in older drafts.
-
"realize". This is a new for me in this particular draft. Characters
are always having these little epiphanies, apparently. This is trickier
to get rid of than "sigh" because it's not a simple delete, but usually
requires rearranging entire sentences to get the same idea across
without making everyone look like Plato.
- "glance". One of my big things that is pretty much just a style of
mine is that I focus on characters' facial expressions, particularly
eyes, because this is what I do in real life. Characters' eyes usually
convey their inner feelings for me. (And this carries on to others'
works...sometimes i don't pick up the inner cues as well unless a
character's eyes are described.) But I've been noticing a large amount
of "glancing" going on in this draft. Not looking, not glaring, not
peering, glancing. Well, it is a pretty word. But I have no need
for so much of it. This is a word that's just driving me nuts at this
point because it's EVERYWHERE. Sometimes I just swap out for another
word so my "glance" rage doesn't explode, but usually I just drop the
whole part or reword it if it's really important.
Aside
from that, it's just the usual. First thing I control+F after reading
through the whole chapter is "that", because extraneous "that"s are my
new kryptonite.
Of course, I type all of this now as I'm staring down the chapter
with the super-awkward-heterosexual-generational-difference-sex-scene
from hell. (Not because it's awful or doesn't belong, but because it's
just so awkward,man, which is good! Because that's what I'm going for.) My brain is going to be caught between "would a reader LAUGH at this description when they're not supposed to" and "oh. oh dude
what are you doing with that?! I totally forgot about this!" while I
know I'm supposed to be looking for these smaller things. I've read and
edited this scene dozens of times now and it's pretty much where it
needs to be, but this whole "tightening sentences" doesn't work when
you're giggling over the word "tight" hee hee hee!
Sigh. I realize now that I should glance through it.
I'm going in.
My writing can get pretty eye-centric, too! I have to watch that.
ReplyDelete...Poor choice of words. LOL
Great post! :)
Oh yes! I'm full sighs, glances and realizes. It is lazy writing, I suppose...but I still do them! And eyes! Oh - my eyes travel, as in "his eyes traveled from her toes to her hair" or "his eyes followed her across the room". Oh boy :-(
ReplyDeleteGood post for making me think and rush to my m/s LOL