Guest Post: Erica Hayes

Today’s guest blogger is Erica Hayes. The third book in her Shadowfae Chronicles, Poison Kissed, was released yesterday.

Too many notes: how to fix overwriting

Emperor Josef once famously said to the genius composer Mozart, while critiquing a passage from his new opera: “There are too many notes!”

Mozart’s reply: “Which ones do you suggest I leave out?”

As writers, we can all relate to Mozart’s indignation. It’s a staple of rejection letters and obscure contest feedback: ‘this story is overwritten’. But what exactly does it mean, and how can you fix it?

For starters, the term is often poorly used.  People see a few adjectives and descriptive sentences and call it ‘overwritten’. But overwriting isn’t merely about adjectives. It’s any paragraph, sentence, even a single word, that isn’t doing its job.

Overwriting is excess words. Words that don’t add meaning. Words that inflate your word count and slow down your prose without doing anything to help. These parasitic words destroy pacing, invite the reader to skim and make your story boring. And none of us want that, right?

So forget adjectives for a moment. Check any passage in your WIP. You might have ‘that’s and ‘then’s and ‘up’s and ‘down’s that don’t need to be there. ‘He stood’ and ‘he stood up’ mean the same, don’t they? Kill the ‘up’ and lose a word. ‘Just’ and ‘only’ are parasite words too. ‘Of’ is another. Why say ‘the edge of the table’ when ‘the table’s edge’ will do? That’s two words gone.

Have you included actions that aren’t required? ‘She walked to the fridge, opened the door, got out the milk, opened the carton, took a glass from the cupboard, and poured herself a glass of milk.’ That takes longer to read than to happen. Page time equals importance in the reader’s eyes, and if you spend that long, that reader will expect the milk to feature later on. If you say ‘she fetched a glass of milk’, readers will assume the rest.

Stephen King said the road to hell is paved with adverbs. They litter the road to overwriting, that’s for sure. Dig them up and find a stronger verb. ‘Walked quickly’ could be ‘strode’ or ‘marched’ or ‘hurried’, or just plain ‘walked’.

Check your dialogue. Do characters say each other’s names all the time? Not so in real life. Cut it. Do you have umms, ahhs, hesitations, half-sentences? Dialogue is not real speech, so you can cut anything that doesn’t further the story. Do you have dialogue attributions (he said, she said) where it’s clear from the context who’s speaking? Cut them.

Finally, we get to adjectives. Cut ’em all, right? Not necessarily. It depends on your style (or ‘voice’, as everyone insists on calling it). If you write in deep point of view, you’ll generally need more adjectives. Fewer if you’re writing a pure action scene. But examine each closely. You’re looking for words that don’t add anything. If you cut them, would meaning be lost? Would the scene lose colour or texture? Would anyone notice, in fact, except you?

You might find tautologies, or ‘big tall man disease’: multiple adjectives that mean the same thing. Pick one and cut the rest. Do you have multiple adjectives describing a small detail, giving it importance it doesn’t deserve? Remember that page time equals importance in a reader’s eyes. Pick the best descriptor and let it stand alone.

I can imagine those of you who’ve read my Shadowfae Chronicles books laughing and pointing sarcastic fingers at the idea of me cutting adjectives. Okay, yes. I admit it. I’m an out-and-proud adjective queen. Anyone who writes erotic fantasy about fairies isn’t exactly aspiring to be Hemingway. But in a way, that’s the point of my stories: they’re full of scents, sounds and rainbow colours that can bear a lot of heavy description before they lose lustre. And believe me, what you’re reading is the pared-down version. In the context of my genre, I’m as conscious of overwriting as anyone.

So getting rid of overwriting is about efficiency, and the best words for the job. But it’s also about style, and your style is your own. No one can teach you your voice. It’s like pruning a rose bush: if you don’t, it’ll get messy, but cut it back too harshly, and it’ll die.

But beware of trimming too neatly, and making your rose bush too much like everyone else’s. Editors already have a Julia Quinn and a J.R. Ward and a Linnea Sinclair in their garden. They don’t want another one. They want you. So be efficient with your words, and trim off the dead foliage – but don’t be afraid of that unexpected bloom.

POISON KISSED ~ Book 3 of the Shadowfae Chronicles

Beyond the veil of magic, a fairy otherworld pulses with glamour and dark beauty. It’s a place where passions run deep and dark — and death is just one kiss away…

Mina is a banshee whose greatest power lies in her siren song. She’s beholden to her boss Joey, a snake-shifter who once saved her life and now employs her as a gang enforcer. She refuses to upset the fragile balance between them by admitting that she longs for him, that his embrace is the only thing she craves more than revenge for her mother’s death…

When Mina learns that Joey may have been involved in her mother’s murder, fury threatens to spill out of her, note by vicious note. She and Joey have always trusted each other to stay alive, but now she’s not sure what to believe. The evidence stacked against him — or the one man who haunts her dreams and burns in her blood…

You can find Erica on the net:

Website: http://www.shadowfae.net

Blog: http://faerylite.livejournal.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ericahayes

Erica is giving away a copy of Poison Kissed to one lucky commentator….so comment away!

Posted by Diane Curran on September 29, 2010

https://romanceaustralia.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/guest-post-erica-hayes/