When is description too much?
Words For Writers asked a damned good question a couple months back and I’ve been meaning to address it here. When is description too much? The simple answer: when it goes on for more than a page. But we’re not here for simple answers.Some fiction writers deem it necessary to babble endlessly about one piece of scenery, or a character, or a piece of furniture, and doing so is, quite frankly, annoying and boring. No matter how good your description is, if it detracts from the story, it’s too much. That’s not to say that a good chunk of description can’t work; it can, but only if it is good, and if it keeps the story interesting. Most likely your readers are not going to sit through a page of prose describing a chair. Here are some good ways to know when description is too much: Reading your description sections makes you forget what the point of that section was. Reading your description sections makes you forget what was happening just prior (or makes you forget the story in general). It goes on forever and ever, dragging your character and narrative away from what is supposed to be going on (i.e. the plot). In the event that you’re writing a story that doesn’t really have a plot, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, then description becomes overbearing if the characters get loses to the reader (or to you). Your description drags the story down. But, description is an important element, one which deserves careful attention. Well-written description invokes something akin to a hallucination. Readers can imagine the scene as if it were real, as if they are actually there, experiencing it through the character’s mind. Fiction is an escape from the real world, or at least the world we currently occupy. Making your description about something more than just telling us the basics can add flare to the world you’re dealing with, to the characters, objects, and scenes you’re attempting to convey or use. Sometimes you need a lot of description to accurately convey these things. Don’t sell yourself short. ——————————– Other opinions welcome. Feel free to leave a comment!
Reader Question: Dialogue Tags (Friend or Foe?)
Tsuki (a friend from Young Writers Online) recently asked me whether dialogue tags are good or bad, so I thought I would tackle that question here. The problem with dialogue tags is that everyone who has been professionally/traditionally published, and has been successful at it, has different opinions on how to properly use dialogue tags. Michael A. Stackpole, for example, often argues (on the Dragon Page and elsewhere) that dialogue tags are pretty much pointless, and that having them in your prose can create unnecessary clutter. Others, such as Stephen King, say that the only dialogue tags you should use are “he said/she said.” There are a myriad of opinions on this subject and none of them are necessarily correct. Much of what matters when it comes to dialogue tags is based on personal style. I very much doubt that readers care whether you use “he said/she said” or no tags at all; the folks who tend to care most about that are writers themselves with particular tastes in how things should be done. But is there a right way to do it? The way I’ve come to see dialogue tags is that they’re generally unnecessary. There’s little reason to have “he said/she said” primarily because it should be pretty obvious who is speaking in your prose. If your characters are distinct individuals, and you throw in useful description around your dialogue to help differentiate who is talking, why would you ever need “he said/she said”? We don’t say “he said/she said” in the real world. We just say it. That being said, if you’re going to use dialogue tags, stick with the standard (“he said/she said”). Anything else is amateur at best (such as “he replied” or “she spat” or he grumbled”). If your character is doing something a certain way, show it to us rather than telling us about it. Dialogue should have a flow to it. I personally have a lot of issues with dialogue, but removing unnecessary dialogue tags helps a great deal. If you decide to use dialogue tags, keep them simple. Clogging your prose with antiquated terms and pointless descriptive language to make your dialogue seem more interesting will ruin the feel of your story. And that’s a big no-no if you want to keep the attention of your audience. What about all you readers? What do you do with your dialogue and why? ——————————————- If you have a question about science fiction, fantasy, writing, or anything related you’d like answered here, whether silly or serious, feel free to send it via email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com, tweet it via Twitter to @shaunduke, or leave it in the comments here. Questions are always welcome! If you liked this post, consider stumbling, digging, or linking to it!
Reader Question: Colon-oscopies (or How to Use the Colon and Its Cousin)
Tsuki over at Young Writers Online asked: How the hell do you use a colon or semi-colon correctly? This should be fairly easy to answer. Here goes: ColonsThe colon is primarily used to attach lists or related statements to an already completed sentence. Here’s an example: Billy wanted to buy three things while he was at the store: bubble gum, bananas, and a new wheel for his hamster. Obviously that is a very simplistic sentence, but it should give you a good idea of how the colon functions. The thing to realize with a colon is that the sentence that precedes it must necessarily be complete. You can’t have a colon preceded by a sentence that cannot stand on its own. What follows the colon must always be an extension of the preceding clause. SemicolonsThese little buggers can be a bit tricky. A semicolon is used to connect two related independent clauses. What that means is that each part of the sentence that houses a semicolon must be complete in and of themselves. Example: Jill cheered for her husband as he marched to the front lines for war; however, the thought of losing him cut close. Each part of the sentence must be independent (i.e. can stand by itself as its own sentence) and there has to be a relationship between them. You wouldn’t talked about Jill’s cheering and then how beer is a wonderful drink, unless somehow you’re connecting the two. As for when to use either of these, that’s more a personal choice than anything else. I use semicolons quite a lot in my fiction primarily because I like it, but it is completely unnecessary. It does add a certain flare to your prose–although, to be fair, I think that’s more based on my personal preferences than anything else. The colon is one that you’ll be hard-pressed to find an adequate use for in fiction. The reason is that the colon doesn’t have much use in fiction is because it isn’t exactly designed for the styles of fiction written today. You see it primarily within the more academic realms (essays, journalism, and other non-fiction venues). You can certainly find uses for it in fiction, but it still needs to follow the rules, otherwise you’ll look like an amateur. Hopefully that was useful. If you have more questions on this particular topic, feel free to let me know in the comments. ———————————– If you have a question related to science fiction, fantasy, writing, or anything related, whether serious or silly, feel free to send it to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com, leave it as a comment to this post (or any post), or send it as a twitter message to @shaunduke. If you liked this post, feel free to stumble it, digg it, or share it on Twitter or wherever! Thanks!
Reader Question: When to Think About Endings
GothixHalo recently asked: When you are writing is it better to have the ending already worked out or to have it work itself out during the process? There’s no proper way to answer this question. How you write endings is entirely up to you based on what works best. Some writers have them worked out beforehand, and others like to leave things open, if not a little mysterious. I’m one of the latter and it would be foolish of me to tell you to write the way I do if it will not help you. A lot of writing tips tend to have an issue of presuming that everyone should write the same way, when in reality we all should write in a manner that works best for us as individuals. With that in mind, however, I can talk about my process for endings in hopes that will be of some use to someone. I intentionally avoid planning endings in anything I write, at least not in the beginning. Clearly I have to have some sense of where I’m going, but the more vague I can keep the final moments of the story, the more interesting the story is to me. I have an issue with losing interest in stories that I already know the end to. A part of me wonders what the point is in finishing a story that I already know the end to. Since the writing process is largely about me, and not anyone else, this makes sense, but I imagine it will lose that clarity when I get published and develop fans (and if they are at all as rabid as George R. R. Martin’s fans, then I’m in for it). Endings are, for me, both the most important and least important elements of stories. On the one hand, the ending is, well, the ending, and without it the story never concludes, never fulfills its metaphysical contract with the reader, the writer, or the characters. On the other hand, endings are less important than the other factors that make a story, such as the characters themselves, or the imagery. Endings can make or break a story, but they don’t always have to. An ambiguous ending is not necessarily a bad one, and in some cases the more ambiguous the ending, the better. This all depends on personal preference, though, and I find that I enjoy certain kinds of endings more than others (I prefer incomplete or less-than-happy endings). There’s no easy answer to this question. What one should do is try it both ways. Try planning the ending ahead of time and see if that works out for you. Then try it the other way and see what happens. It would be wrong of me to say that you have to do it one way and not another. Nobody, even a published writer (unlike myself), has the authority to tell you how you should write. Writers may give you advice and may suggest to you things that have worked for them, but what they say should always be taken with the understanding that what works for them may not work for you. People fiddle with “conventions” all the time, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What about all of you? Any thoughts? ——————————– And that concludes this week’s Reader Question. If you have a question, feel free to let me know in the comments, send it via a tweet to @shaunduke, or email it to me at arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com. If you liked this post, please consider stumbling it, bookmarking it, or whatever.
Five Oft-Repeated, But Invaluable Writing Tips
I’m not making this list with the intention to simply repeat what everyone else has said, but to offer some notes of advice that I know personally to have worked. Perhaps you can take something from my personal experiences with these tips that you wouldn’t have been able to get from the myriad of repeated versions of the same thing all across the Interwebs and in books. Here they are: Read a LotTo avoid the vagueness of that statement, I’d like to clarify this to mean that you should read “a lot” based on your own pace. We all can’t read twenty novels in a week, so don’t feel bad if it takes you a couple weeks for a 300-page book. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t stop reading.Reading can drastically improve your craft. It has for me. And read outside your comfort zone from time to time. I’m lucky in that I am in college, and thus exposed to a lot of writers I probably would not have read before. The result is that my writing has changed for the better; I can actually see the differences in how I write, what I write, and the quality of what I write. Show Your Work to OthersGetting critiques does actually work. While you don’t always get great advice, you do often find mistakes your critical eye failed to discover. My writing has drastically improved as a result of this and I find that I experiment more and more with style as a result. Write FrequentlyThis shouldn’t be misconstrued as to mean you should have a writing schedule. I find that advice that demands that you write every day only works for people who have that sort of creative brain. But you should write often. Don’t fall into the trap of “Well, I don’t have time.” You do have time, and if you’re in the mood to write, then do it. Writing often has not only improved my craft, but also created more of a drive to write, which I, unfortunately, have to sometimes ignore in order to get other more important things done. Write What You LoveI don’t write what the market wants. I write what I find interesting. This really should be the cardinal rule, but unfortunately it’s been superseded by that bastard “Show, Don’t Tell” one. Trying to write to the market is not only stupid (because the market constantly changes), but really rather pointless. When you force yourself to write a certain thing, it shows. Just write what you like. ExperimentThere’s no logical reason why you shouldn’t try to push the limits and try new things. Your writing will benefit enormously from pushing yourself to fiddle with style, grammar, and words. Perhaps one of the most profoundly important lessons I learned, as my writing has drastically changed from simply trying new things. You should too. You don’t have to write like everyone else! And there you have it. Any pieces of advice that you took that helped you in your writing? What were they? Let me know in the comments and if you like this post, feel free to tell your friends about it or stumble it (or something). Thanks!
How Not To Sell Your Fiction
Since I haven’t a clue how to actually sell fiction–considering that I haven’t done so myself–I can at least talk about the reasons why you won’t sell your work–assuming, of course, that selling your work is your intention.How do you go about not selling your work? Well, these are some pretty good reasons: You Don’t SubmitPretty obvious, right? If you don’t submit, you won’t be published, unless by some freak accident some random editor sees some of your writing and comes to you. But we’re talking some seriously absurd odds here–worse than anything NASA can come up with. You Can’t Take CriticismI’ve mentioned this before primarily because it’s something I think is enormously important for any writer to be able to do. If you can’t take criticism, you can’t improve your craft. People who criticize your work aren’t doing it to be mean (well, some of them might be, but good people aren’t). The best way to improve is to pay attention to what others say about your work. What do they perceive to be weaknesses and strengths? You don’t have to agree with all of it, but you wouldn’t have let them read it if you didn’t care about their opinions, right? You Don’t Follow GuidelinesEditors don’t put submission guidelines on their websites simply to torture new writers with the “complicated” nature of formatting, etc. No, editors put them up to make their lives easier. You’re not the one reading hundreds or thousands of submissions for every publication. It’s bad enough for the short story market and it’s even worse for the novel market. Follow them. The last thing you want ruining your chances is your inability to double-space. You Don’t WriteDuh. Do I even need to explain this one? You Make Death Threats or Other Career-Sabotaging ThingsRemember the whole Kevin W. Reardon/Cole A. Adams thing? If you don’t want to sell your work, I recommend sending death threats to editors. Guaranteed results. Just like with Mr. Reardon, who has, at this point, been put into every editor’s book of folks to banish to the depths of writing obscurity–since I’m sure he won’t be obscure in the realm of authorial conduct. You DieDon’t. It’s generally a good idea to live. Otherwise someone else has to sell your work. It doesn’t count if someone else sells your work, because you’re dead, and dead people don’t generally care if they achieve fame post-mortem. You Let Evil Wombats Store Your WorkThere’s a reason why they’re called evil wombats: they take unsuspecting writers’ work, print it, delete it, and then shred it into tiny pieces right in front of you. I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is. They’re evil…and wombats. That’s a double whammy right there. And there you have it. What do you think? Got any suggestions? Leave a comment! And as always, feel free to digg it, stumble it, or submit it to your favorite social bookmarking site. Anywho!