I've come across a few important things toward editing my novel. Though not too many people stumble upon my articles or leave comments when they visit them, I thought this advice may come in handy toward your own writing, especially if you've already made attempts with agents and were rejected once, twice, a few more times...do we want to count on our manuscript being what they want first hand? They should see something significant right away. But a manuscript that's unclear needs one process throughout the entire document, and that is a new focus.
When we read our fiction, we already have a lot of visuals and sense in mind as it goes from one sentence to the next. We already know our intentions behind each sentence with the same vision, but in truth, the reader doesn't always have the same sense to it that we do. I wish I had an example. Take your own for instance, at the moment I can't share an excerpt of mine. When we say something that precedes the next, we need to know what the reader understands from the first sentence. How does the reader think? By now, should they already understand the psychology of that character and understand their decision making and rationality? We depend on the reader to know these things, but our writing may not be clear enough when we say the next thing. A good focus - on the meaning behind the character's focus and the reader's understanding of the words - is what we need.
In order to connect the meaning behind the character's focus, we can share their perception of the environment through our own perception. It may make sense to the character in the way it makes sense to us, but be clear and concise with the words you choose. It could also be lengthy, even dramatic, depending on the moment and how much space you have left to create something.
It's important also to be timely, just the right information ahead of some more information in a sentence will allow the reader to view what the character views in the order its seen.
Seeing what the reader sees depends on sentences prior to the one you are looking at and will lead you both to the next after you have revised. Furthermore, if the reader hasn't adapted to the writing, they are the ones who need to start over with the reading with what they already know. We are writing something with a certain mind to it, and we don't always need to conform to what we suspect the reader thinks. In fact, they may already get the picture we have, but internal monologue is necessary in viewing the character. I'm sorry, I had the right idea a moment ago and lost it. Now I feel what? I'm thinking I should know something more than what the first thought was. I admit, I've had too much coffee today. :)
Internal monologue, where we display the rationality behind their current fears, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, hopes, and dreams - and whatever else pertaining to their perception - is necessary in the development of your characters. We should have an idea of what the character looks like, and a detail referring to that should come in good time, before the action that follows the first chapter. If we go into internal monologue, how does the character look? Does the internal monologue appear that they are going nuts? Or do they have a calm demeanor in face of all these questions? Be sure to explain something like this if it's necessary to maintain the character's demeanor. Sometimes you may assume the reader gets it after enough information has already been given before a scene, but if there is a turning point in the character's outlook, be it lazy, nervous, steady, curious, active, overwhelmed, or such and such.
In my first chapter, I found it helpful to share background information that at the same time acted as internal monologue as both characters are aware of their past and are both meeting an interval in their lives. Their adaptation to the adult world is a challenge for them, and more and more situations add conflict to that.
Where I found internal monologue most necessary was in scenes with too much dialogue, which created too much white space. The best method here is to show how one of the characters thinks about the other one, perhaps even what they see in that other character, and vise versa, that is if you have it in 3rd person already.
For those of you still using "which was" you may omit it altogether and use a comma instead, as in this: The long sentence, which was seen as convoluted... changes to The long sentence, seen as convoluted...
Another thing I'm finding is the word "felt." I see it as a place that needs to be developed with internal monologue that makes the reader understand those feelings, and that comes with development from sentence to sentence. Or perhaps some brief fact or statement that is how the character knows it as in this: She cried and felt it all through her body. Life would be difficult for him.
You may wonder about this in your own work, but I find a lot of submissions to open up with the first paragraph as something difficult for the writer to conceive or write, which comes across somewhat like exhibitionism with the way it's written, as though they are saying the scene has more glory in the first paragraph than the rest. Be sure to modify your first paragraph and allow it to be the best precursor to the following paragraphs and just as worthy as the rest. Though I admit to doing this with my first draft, I've brought it much closer to where it needs to be. And sometimes it just helps to write what needs to be written so that you can keep writing and modify it later, so really there's nothing wrong with that.
Environment, Internal Monologue, Perception of other Characters
Here's another thing. If you have a lot of white space, do you have your characters ask each other questions in order to show some information? Go to the last comment before the question and include the answer in it, explaining to the other character who no longer needs to ask the question. This will lengthen the first comment and cut the second one, it may even turn into one big comment where the characters are much more focused.
I'll be back to revise this article soon, perhaps with even more!
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Comments: 15
I would take some issues with a few of your points. I suspect you may not have really expected to get into some of the details or nuances, but in case you're interested I do have some thoughts.
"We should have an idea of what the character looks like"
Well, that is one way to go, and common. However out of the "less is more" school of thought, a number of modern writers do not describe the physical features of their characters AT ALL, allowing the reader to project his own idea of what he would want the protagonist/antagonist to look like.
"before the action that follows the first chapter"
I'm not sure what you meant by this... Action that "follows the first chapter" would be action in any other chapter (the second chapter, for example). Are you saying before the action in the first chapter, or the action that comes after the first chapter (thus is in another chapter)?
I would agree with this, provided the description is not the first thing you. I would argue that, if possible, action should come first (in the very first line). 100 Years of Solitude begins with the line "As Lieutenant Col. Antonio Buenida faced the firing squad, he thought back to the day his father invented ice" (if that line won't get you to read the page, nothing will) - or another classic opener "Breaking down the door, they found they had the wrong address, so they just killed the old lady instead" - notice multiple characters and we have no idea what they look like. I agree, however, that should you choose to describe them (probably a good idea), you should do it before the reader begins to develop their own sense of the character.
"I found it helpful to share background information that at the same time acted as internal monologue"
I would be EXTREAMLY weary of this technique, as it is tantamount to "Dialog as Exposition" (DaE). DaE is a modern literary phenomena, born out of a culture that watches television and movies where often there is no narrator so DaE must be used. Writers who watch movies translate the DaE technique (which is an evil necessity baring narration) to writing (where you have a narrator, so you don't need it) out of mimicry. Character background should be narrated. We all have internal monologs (and we all talk to ourselves), but to the best of my knowledge we don't use our internal monologue system to remember the past. It's a fine point, but an important one. I take plenty of trips down memory lane - but remembering and an internal monologue are two very different things. Internal monologue is used by people (and hence your characters, who are people) to work out ideas, problems, emotions, and so on. It is not used as a recolective technique (though I've seen people try to write it that way, and it feels forced, as DaE so often is).
"too much white space"
I agree you can have too much dialog. I don't know how you can have too much white space - if the dialog is good, salient and purposeful, nobody's going to reject it because of too much white space. Judge dialog on its merits, not what it looks like on the page (if your reader is drawn into the story, if the dialog is crisp and invigorating, they're not going to care, are they? Do you think an agent would say "This is RIVITING dialog, every word is important and exciting, but there's too much whitespace, so cut half"?). I know of no industry standard which measures white space or objects to it. The quality of the dialog and its contribution to your story should be your ONLY consideration – if you feel there's too much white space, that's probably coming from a sense the dialog is stagnant, because if it weren't, you wouldn't care. So I would recommend you think of it as an issue with the dialog instead of formatting.
Regardless, these are nuanced points. I think you've got a strong handle on some of the basic problems when it comes to editing. Keep up the good work!
Try: Many gossiped, and while Renee joined in sometimes, it was with a certain amount of guard.
You said in your Feb. 14 comment, "For me, I cut bits of dialogue that served no purpose to the story, though it did show how the character felt, and it was natural to have them say these things."
I agree. As one of my readers told me, "Just because something happened, doesn't mean you have to write down every detail." For instance, if two characters are out on a date, you don't have to necessarily go into every minute detail of what they ordered at the swanky restaurant; it may be enough to say he greedily slurped down half a dozen slimy-looking, overly garlicked snails and she shuddered at the notion of kissing him goodnight later.
"What did you have for breakfast?"
"A lot."
"Yeah?
"Yeah."
It could be
"I had an omelet for breakfast and drank orange juice after I was done. I took it up to the computer and was talking to you. That's when I found the bug in it after I had already been drinking out of it."
"Many had the habit to gossip, and even though she may have as well, she was at guard against it." This is very passive. Try not to use have/had so much. Use active verbs.
Try: Many gossiped, and while Renee joined in sometimes, it was with a certain amount of guard.
Passive or active, the bigger problem is that both of these examples have incredibly awkward language usage. People are "on" guard, not "at" or "having" it.
"Many had the habit to gossip" -- this simply isn't normal English. "Many had the habit of gossiping" would work. If I were going to rework your sentence, I'd restate it as: "Many had the habit of gossiping, and while she had the habit too, she was on guard against it."
People often are confused about what the passive voice actually is -- it's a very specific technique used to take the character out of the sentence. Here's an example:
You can find a solution to the problem
vs.
A solution to be problem can be found.
The second is passive, the first is not. I have noticed many people on this site mistaking awkward writing for passive writing. The example "corrected" by Hannah has some degree of passivity, but mostly, it's simply awkward. One key editing technique is to read aloud, which would immediately have clued you in about that particular passage. The Baldwin passage you quoted, while it does effectively take the character out of the scene, also flows perfectly.