I’m doing yet another edit on Rabbit and Cougar. The last one included some major plot changes, whereas this one will be mostly or completely line edits, but there’s still some ambivalence when I realize that my edits are still improving a work. First of all, there’s the thrill of seeing a sentence become clearer and snappier – “Sweet! I can make this better than it was!” Then, of course, there’s the, “Oh man, I thought this was already as good as I could make it!” followed by the insidious, “If I’m still making real improvements now, how do I know that I’ll be done after this edit? Because I think it’s as polished as I can make it? That’s what I thought after the last edit!” Luckily, I’m getting fewer of these negative this time for the simple reason that this edit is quantifiably different from the last one. This time, I’m reading aloud.

I’d heard this recommended so many times that I feel silly for not doing it more often. I already read most of my short stories aloud to myself, and I catch all sorts of things that, try as I might, I never noticed when reading in my head. As one might expect, it’s especially good for dialogue, but it’s supposed to work on essays, too. Still, I’d never quite managed to edit any of my novels this way. This is partly because they’re long and partly because I don’t live alone. Now, I’ve finally sucked it up and taken my laptop up to my room (or waited until no one else is in the living room area) to read out loud.

Most of what I catch this way is the stuff that’s fun to change because I don’t feel conflicted about it. It’s repetition, unnecessary words, and awkwardness. It’s criminal overuse of the word “rather.” Sometimes they’re sneaky – I can usually avoid using “to” three times in a sentence, but what about (get ready for this) two “to”s and a “two,” too? The voice snags on things that the eye may not catch. These things are not in my manuscript because I couldn’t decide whether or not I needed them. They are there because I didn’t notice them.

Funnily enough, when I read aloud for awhile, my silent reading starts to take on a similar pace and deliberation. I could probably continue to edit that way if I wanted. This seems especially likely given that I find myself mentally cutting and rephrasing things in other books I’m reading. For example, a book I’m currently reading contains a battle scene wherein the protagonist’s opponent extends its sword “so as to impale him.” So as to? In a battle scene? Really? Here, “so” and “as” are exactly the kinds of words I’d find myself involuntarily skipping while reading aloud, and so would take out during that stage of editing. It amused me greatly to find myself trying to skip them in my head, too. A similar thing happened later in the same book, when another character “still continued to chuckle.”

Small cuts can be incredibly rewarding. How often do you get to make changes that seem to clearly, objectively improve the work? For example, I’m astounded at how many unnecessary dialogue tags Rabbit and Cougar still has. And while so far, the technical errors seem not to have survived the last edit, reading aloud is great for catching those, too.

So that’s my writing tip of the day: Read your work aloud. It’s by no means a new idea – I believe I’ve actually plugged it on this blog before – but it’s a good one. I didn’t believe the difference until I tried it. And from what I’ve seen, very few works of writing suffer from over-editing . . .

Or, Fainting, Flushing, Blanching, and Blushing.

With all the emphasis now on showing rather than telling, it’s no surprise that so many writers employ physicality to express the emotional states of their characters. One of the earliest lessons we learn is not to say “she looked angry,” but instead “her eyes narrowed” or “her jaw clenched” or whatever other mini-action seems appropriate. They can also replace basic adverbs: Her eyes narrowed. “That’s none of your business.” rather than “That’s none of your business,” she said angrily. Physicalities can even denote a physical state, like being hungry, cold, or in pain.

I am entirely in favor. It’s much more interesting to get a specific visual than it is to read, “he looked nervous.” But most writers know that. As I said before, this is showing versus telling at its most basic, and one of the situations in which most everyone prefers the former to the latter. What some writers don’t know is that there are a few pitfalls to this popular technique.

1. Cliches.

This is rarely a problem, since some of the most commonly-used physicalities – smiling, crying, and blushing, for example – are realistic and easily understood. Some, like smiling and frowning, don’t annoy the reader if they occur with moderate frequency. Still, it pays to sometimes vary the actual descriptions. This might mean using “grinned” or “beamed” rather than smiled some of the time, or it might mean playing with metaphors and similes:

“[Uncle Vernon’s] face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn’t stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge . . .” – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

2. Overuse.

David L. Robbins, who taught my Advanced Fiction class at William & Mary, would contend that practically any physicality is too much. He cut it with a vengeance, encouraging his students to express characters’ emotions through dialogue and action alone.

I tend not to be quite that sparse. If the action or dialogue really does stand alone, that’s great, but sometimes a facial expression – or a growl, a fist through the wall, what have you – adds to the scene. Besides, it can be a great tool for expressing unexpected or hidden emotions. A character might wince at hearing what should be good news, or smile at a private joke.

There is still such a thing as too much.

As a visual person, I sympathize with writers who want to share every twitch and blink that they see in their minds with the readers. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. If every line of dialogue is accompanied by a physicality, the pace slows, attention is distracted from the spoken lines, and the scene runs the risk of feeling silly. Also, a character who is saddled with a dozen mini-actions in one page can come off as kind of a spaz.

Aside from the overuse of physicality in general, writers should be aware of how frequently they use specific expressions, especially the less-common ones. It’s just like vocabulary: Your characters can “smile” almost as often as they like, but they should try to avoid more than one “pout” or “flinch” per chapter or so. And please, please, if your characters must have eyes that “smolder,” don’t let them do it more than once per book. “Smolder” is not only a distinctive action, it’s also a distinctive word, so repeating it breaks both the expression rule and the vocabulary rule. But even expressions that aren’t so distinctive can be overused: The protagonist of a book I recently read bit her lip so many times that I ended up picturing her as just sort of munching on it through the whole story, and was surprised that she had any lips left by the end.

3. Realism.

This is the one that actually prompted me to blog about this topic. Many physicalities, especially facial expressions, have familiar causes that everyone knows. We’ve all smiled, laughed, and winced. We know when it’s appropriate for a character to do these things. Some of the less-common ones – blushing, shivering, fainting – can be accidentally abused by writers looking to be vivid or dramatic. It’s worth a bit of research, or just a second thought, to do these things right.

Some writers overuse strong physical reactions. When was the last time you actually shivered from fear? I don’t think I ever have. I catch fictional characters doing it all the time. There’s also a lot of screaming, sobbing, and turning white with anger. These are all things real people do, of course, but not all the time – and, worth remembering, not all people.

I find the biggest problem with these reactions is not inaccuracy, but frequency. A writer may develop a standard way to convey certain emotions – say, fear with shivering, embarrassment with blushing. In reality, however, these reactions differ by person. Even something as simple as blushing may be common in one person but rare occur in another. My mom says that, when she was younger, she would turn “so red!” when embarrassed, and still does when she exercises. I went to school with a girl who did the same thing. My face, on the other hand, seems to change color only with sunburn or medical issues – see recent post on fainting. 😛 It makes more sense to have a separate standard response for each character, so that embarrassment causes Sally to blush but Billy to shuffle his feet or avoid people’s eyes. Then, too, there are degrees. Maybe Sally goes pink around the ears, while Rex does a full-on tomato impersonation. (What? People named Rex can blush!)

Fainting is a similar, if more extreme, example. Some people are prone to it and others simply not. No amount of surprise, prolonged standing, or watching surgery will cause fainting in some people, whereas others get woozy at one or all of the above, or a number of other causes. While you may never write a fainting scene, it’s worth remembering: Under the right circumstances, almost anyone will blush/faint/scream/tremble/etc., but some people are blushers, fainters . . . you get the idea. Making one such reaction your go-to for a certain emotion can not only be unrealistic, but diminish the oomph that you get from something like a real shiver. You also lose an opportunity to distinguish your characters from one another.

Physical expressions can be tremendous fun. As a fantasy writer, I love creating expressions for characters who aren’t human. Two of the characters in The Dogwatchers have magical reactions to certain emotional states. Then, too, I’ve always liked characters who come from a different culture and revert to old mannerisms when startled or upset – like my Latin teacher from Alabama, who ordinarily had no noticeable Southern accent, but once exclaimed, “Oh mah Lawd!” at the sight of a gory illustration in a graphic novel.

So yes. If Lesson One in writing emotions is to show, not tell, then Lesson Two is that there are a zillion creative, effective ways to show. Use them!

. . . really!

I won the Bad Queries competition at the blog If You Give a Girl a Pen. (What in the world is proper style for writing the title of a blog? Italics? I have no idea.) That contest was way too much fun. Check out my winning entry here.

. . . Or, In Which a Doctor’s Appointment is Relevant to My Writing. (Just like everything else.)

I spent the morning helping Dr. Mary Donovan out around the house. Given that she’s officially my physician, it was kind of funny that I had to cut out early for a doctor’s appointment, but it was just a physical, so I was scheduled with the practice’s nurse practitioner.

I do not like getting physicals. I don’t think many people are like, ooh, a physical, hurray! But seriously. They are ouchful. So, in the back of my mind, I’d spent all morning/early afternoon reassuring myself that the physical wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. Total B.S., as it turns out. Despite the nurse practitioner being really sweet, the physical was at LEAST as bad as I’d thought. Once it was over, I just needed to have some blood drawn for a bunch of tests. (I’m trying to get everything done before I go off my parents’ super-duper insurance in December.) I consoled myself with the thought that, after that awfulness, this would be a cakewalk.

Yeah. That was before I passed out.

I have never, ever so much as gotten light-headed while having blood drawn. On the other hand, I’ve never had this much drawn. The nurse practitioner, when looking at all the tests Dr. Mary had ordered (basically anything that might possibly be relevant to me; see above regarding insurance), joked that they were going to “drain you dry!” I wasn’t, at the time, the least bit upset by this joke.

I admit to being somewhat put off when the nurse got out four empty tubes.

“You guys gonna take all my blood?” I said. “I’m using some of it.”

The nurse laughed and assured me that she would leave me some. She said, though, that each test required two tubes, and that there were – she consulted another nurse – seven tests? Eight? That made me a little uncomfortable. Those tubes looked really big. Two tubes per test?

I was fine when the needle and tube went in. It didn’t hurt. I even sat there looking at it for a bit, as I’d never had blood drawn with a tube like that before. I found it a little ooky after a moment (though I felt just fine), so I turned away from it. The nurse and I talked about Anne Donovan’s upcoming wedding as she filled tube after tube. Me: Still fine. Not light-headed. When the nurse finished the fourth tube, she took out the needle, but I was starting to feel light-headed.

For anyone who’s never fainted or experienced serious light-headedness, IT SUCKS. A LOT. It’s amazing how uncomfortable it is, given that it doesn’t actually hurt. It’s sort of like a mixture of drowning and nausea. Your face feels cold, and your head feels fluffy and buzzy and just REALLY NOT GOOD.

I recognized the feeling – when I was about fourteen, and mentoring with a veterinarian, I got light-headed while watching my first operation. I then collapsed, though I never went entirely out. Afterward, I had to sit with my head down for awhile, hating the world. So anyway, today, I told the nurse that I was feeling light-headed. I remember raising my hands to rub at my face, trying to get the feeling back there. Then, I remember having a distinctly cheerful dream-thing, though I have no inkling now of what it was about. I was aware that I was dreaming, but this meant that my brain assumed that I was at home in bed. I freaked the heck out when I was jarred awake by two strangers shaking my arms and saying, “Ellen! Ellen!” I had a really intense, “Where am I?” moment – I can’t even describe it. I was waking up in a sitting position in a lab, half-numb, with my face covered in sweat, being shaken by strangers. It was almost more of a, “Who am I? What am I? Have I just been created, right here, in this lab? Is this my first-ever moment of consciousness?” moment. VERY FREAKY.

After a few seconds, I remembered what had happened. I felt kind of stupid and kind of irritated, but mostly just ooky and awful. The nurses got my dad from the waiting room, and they took me in a wheelchair to an empty exam room and had me lie down. At this point, it was occurring to me that they had a lot more tubes of blood to do. I asked them whether they intended to draw the rest of it now. I asked them not to. Please. Were they going to? I really didn’t want them to. They weren’t answering. They were making me lie down, and they were sort of grabbing at my arms, and I freaked the heck out again because they weren’t answering me about the blood. I tried to pull my arms away, telling Dad not to let them take more blood. He was just kind of sitting there, smiling sympathetically.

So, it turns out that while my internal monologue read rather clearly and logically, at least to me, my actual utterings were more akin to the following:

“You’re not gonna do more tubes, are you? I don’t want any more. Not now. Not today. No more tubes. Not four more. There were four more! I can’t do four more. No more tubes, okay? Don’t take any more, okay? No more! Dad, don’t let them take any more!”

And the parts that were actually audible:

“You’re . . . tubes? I don’t . . . Not four more . . . No . . . Okay? Don’t! Daaad!” *Ineffectual flailing*

Also, my lack of brain oxygen meant that my protests didn’t convey the force and urgency I had kind of meant them to have. Eventually, I got my message across such that the nurse who was trying to make me stop flailing said, “We’re not going to draw any more blood today.” That was all I needed to hear. I quit flopping around, and they put some cool paper towels on my forehead and stuff, checked my blood pressure, and left me there to rest a little.

I was feeling kind of silly, but managed to freak out one more time – though less so, as I was tired and dizzy – when I realized how much more blood they still had to draw. Also, it took awhile for my brain to get its oxygen back.

Dad: How are you doing?
Me: Better. I feel kind of silly. But I’m really glad they’re not taking more blood today. Are they going to reschedule?
Dad: They didn’t finish?
Me: No. No, they had eight tubes. *Growing anxiety* They did four tubes, but there were eight tests! They have to do four more tubes!
Dad: Calm down, sweetie. They’re not drawing any more blood today. If they have to reschedule, you’ll be lying down next time.
Me: Four more tubes! I don’t want to do four more tubes! They’ll have to do two appointments or something!
Dad: I don’t think you should worry about that now, sweetie.
Me: They have to do eight tests! Each test takes two tubes! That’s a lot of blood! That’s eight tubes! That’s a lot!
Dad: . . . We’ll ask them about that, sweetie. Don’t worry. We’ll ask them about it.
Me: *Hysterically* Ask them? They told me! Eight tests! Four more tubes! I can do math!
Dad: . . . I . . . don’t think you should worry about that now, sweetie.
Me: *Brain suddenly recovers ability to actually do math, throwing me into real panic* Wait! Eight tests – that’s not four more tubes!
Dad: *Looks resigned*
Me: That’s, like – that’s a lot of blood! I can’t do that! I can’t do it!

At about this point, the nurse practitioner came in and told me cheerfully, “You didn’t tell me you were a fainter!”

That did pretty well in replacing my panic with poorly-communicated annoyance. It was some time after this that I regained the ability to speak forcefully, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

Me: THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!
NP: Okay. I guess it was probably the pain.
Me: Pain? What pain? That didn’t hurt at all!
NP: *Knowledgeably* I guess maybe just the thought, then.
Me: *For some reason, massively frustrated by the suggestion that this was psychological and not caused by YOUR NURSES TAKING ALL MY BLOOD, WOMAN!* I WASN’T THINKING ABOUT IT!
Nurse: Yeah, actually, she was talking to me about Anne Donovan’s wedding.
NP: *Wisely ditching the psychological-cause angle* You know, you do have low blood pressure. That could be it.
Me: *Satisfied* Yeah, that’s probably it.

Like I said, the NP was really nice. I just was in no mood for anything at the time. Had I thought of it, I probably would have tried to demand my blood back.

The really funny thing? After I could walk and they let us leave, Dad and I went to the convenience store across the street so that he could get me a soda. I stayed in the car. My thoughts? “I’m going to have to rewrite that fainting scene in Rabbit and Cougar.”

Aside from working on The Dogwatchers, I’ve spent quite a bit of the past week checking out other writing-related blogs. I was surprised to find how many unpublished writers, or writers with small publications like mine, have blogs on writing similar to this one. Even when entertaining and well-written, these often have a small following, mostly people who seem to know the writer. At first, I found this slightly discouraging – everyone seemed to be doing just what I am! – but then I realized that there’s actually quite a bit to be learned from these blogs. People have different experiences and knowledge, so the fact that they’re similar in theme doesn’t mean that this has been done to death. For example:

Blogs like Fiction City and this one, reminded me a lot of mine. They follow the writer’s life as it pertains to writing, sometimes stopping to analyze a writing technique, and are fun mostly for the same reason mingling at a writers’ conference is fun: enthusiasm for the craft and, sometimes, commiseration. This is why people who are doing NaNoWriMo get together. It’s fun to hang out with other writers. (Liz’s Ink also has, on the profile page, a nice long list of writer and agent blogs.)

Hedgehog Librarian is a cool blog by a librarian, which includes book reviews. Yapping About YA also has book reviews, as does YA Fiction Fanatic. Officially Twisted, too, reviews a few books that sound awesome – steampunk and werewolves and superheroes, oh my. If You Give a Girl a Pen . . . has this fun contest for the worst possible agent query.

Speaking of agents, there’s another whole realm of blogs I’ve been exploring. These are probably much more interesting to writers than non-writers (that might describe much of today’s post), but are exceedingly interesting to me. Some agents talk about strange queries, while others post sales trends and what publishers want right now. (The unanimous conclusion: MORE vampires.) Some talk generally about writing. At least one says that she strongly prefers to get queries from the kinds of people who read her blog, because those people tend to know (and care) what she wants to see. A few of the blogs I’ve been reading:

–Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown Ltd.
–“Agent Kristin” posts about meetings with publishers, questions from writers, and more.
–Query Shark is excellent fun. If you send a query to the agent (Janet Reid) at her Query Shark address, she’ll post it on the blog and dissect it there. You can then resubmit as many times as you want. Sometimes the Shark even accepts a work after a few revisions. (Unfortunately, she doesn’t represent YA fantasy, but the blog is still a great resource for query writing.)
–The Rejecter is a blog by an assistant at a literary agency, and again contains great advice for queries.

I’ve checked out at least a dozen more blogs. I doubt I’ll be up for conscientiously following many – maybe any – of these, but they’re certainly fun and informative to drop in on.

In the process of submitting more short stories to more magazines, I have discovered a few additional search engines for writing markets: Ralan’s Webstravaganza and Quintamid.

So! Having been rejected from all eleven Creative Writing MFA programs to which I applied, I’m now looking at Masters programs in Library Science. I’ve always been passionate about libraries – I have been known to hug them, and the Williamsburg Regional Library is pretty much the love of my life – and I loved working at the Farmville-Prince Edward Community Library. Not only can I enthusiastically and knowledgeably push books and learning on people, I have to love a job where you’re not selling anything. You’re not taking people’s money, so you can recommend books without feeling like you’re being a pushy salesperson – and if they don’t want the book(s) you recommend, it’s no loss to you. Letting people take books home for free – what part of that isn’t awesome?

My long-term career hope is still to be a creative writing professor, which would of course mean taking the MFA later. (Unless, you know, I become a fabulously successful and well-known writer in the meantime.) I love the workshop environment, believe I’d be a good professor, and think it’s a pretty awesome job. Still, I’d be happy to work in a library for awhile. Even if “awhile” ends up being a long time, I think it’s a job I’d do well and enjoy.

Soon, I should be posting an update on the Exceedingly Nerdy Writing Project on which I’m working. (Or, “Next time – pie charts!”)