Editing, Day 13--Character Motivation

And we’re back.

I’m going to plunge right in with adding more CM reactions to our action scene. I’m starting in where we left off yesterday. One important note: I’m adding actions according to how I understand the characters. Which can’t be completely, because I haven’t read the rest of the book. I’m going on simply what I have to go on. As I've said before, my rewrite isn't the way to write the scene. It is merely an example of how I would put the techniques we've been discussing to work.

The blow blackened the room, fuzzed its edges. Dizziness coiled through Christy.

Vince threw her to the floor. "Piece of trash."

She drew a shaky breath, struggled to raise her head. “Vince, stop. Please.”

In the first paragraph, we already have an internal reaction line—regarding the dizziness. And we certainly need one, ’cause the reader needs to feel the results of that blow to the temple along with our character. What do you think—should we place another internal reaction before she draws the shaky breath? We have some time here, because she’s on the floor, struggling with dizziness. I’m thinking about all the times Christy must have heard stuff like this from Vince in the past—cut-downs, telling her she’s nothing. I want to see her emotional pain that reacts to such words as much as she reacts physically to blows. Because we all know that emotional abuse can sometimes be as difficult to handle as physical abuse.

Something else. By placing an internal reaction here, we are helping to set up the change that’s going to come in Christy when she decides to fight. That change will seem greater in comparison if we see her wallowing in the mental abuse at this point. But how to write a CM that’s the right length and isn’t telling? Answer-- we have to keep close to her thoughts, rather than drawing back into narrative. Something like:

Vince threw her to the floor. “Piece of trash.”

The words knifed. How many times had she heard them, had they caused her to grovel at his feet? Much as she was now.

She drew a shaky breath, struggled to raise her head. “Vince, stop. Please.”

I think that's better. Not only is she reacting to hearing the harsh words again, but also the last line--Much as she was now--adds an element of self-loathing. Circumstances have caused her to grovel once again--literally this time--and she hates that. I also think these added thoughts make the following sentence pop. Shaky stands out more to me now, as well as struggled. And her plea.

Going on.

“Too late, Christy.” He dragged her to her feet, shoved her against the stall door. The metal latch bit into her back. She moaned. “No more chances for you.”

He backhanded her face. Pain shot through her nose. Christy crumpled to her knees, hands flying to the wound. Blood dripped on her fingers.

I want more of a physical reaction to the pain. Something Christy does after she feels. In order to insert such a beat here and not make it too close to a beat in the previous sentence, I’m going to delete She moaned from the first paragraph.

“Too late, Christy.” He dragged her to her feet, shoved her against the stall door. The metal latch bit into her back. “No more chances for you.”

He backhanded her face. Pain shot through her nose. Christy cried out. She crumpled to her knees, hands flying to the wound. Blood dripped on her fingers.

Overall, I think this is better. And the first paragraph’s rhythm actually works better without that moaned beat. Things are happening too fast there for a moan.

“Look at you.” His tone sneered. “So ugly. What did I ever see in you?”

She cradled her nose, straining for air. Hating him. How could she ever have loved this man?

Okay, change moment is a’comin’ soon. We need to set it up more here. We’ve got some time to do that as she’s cradling her nose. A few seconds’ break in the action.

“Look at you.” His tone sneered. “So ugly. What did I ever see in you?”

She cradled her nose, straining for air. Hating herself. Hating him. How could she ever have loved this man?

I think that’s enough. Those two words hating herself speak volumes, and they pick up on that earlier beat we added about groveling at Vince's feet. These two words tell us that on one level Christy believes she’s ugly, because he’s said so often enough. And on another level she hates herself for not fighting back, because she knows what he says isn’t true. If we keep going with this thought, adding any more words than just these two, we’ll quickly resort to telling.

Vince pulled a wad of rope out of his jacket pocket.

Christy spied the rope—and knew. He was going to kill her.

Now Vince has her down, literally and figuratively. They’re alone. He’s on his feet; she’s injured and on the ground. She’s not going anywhere. What do you suppose a man like this is going to do now? I think he will slow his actions way down. I think he will play with her. Draw the moments out to make her suffer. In fact, I think we won’t even need Christy to tell us she realizes he’s going to kill her—because he’s going to let us know. This threat will be much stronger coming from his actions, and perfectly in keeping with who he is. Now, he won’t need to say the words I’m going to kill you, because he won’t need to. That would come off as stilted dialogue. He’s going to subtext this dialogue—that is, let his actions speak louder than his words, with his real meaning running like an undercurrent beneath the words.

When we allow Vince to show his true colors like this, the threat will become a stronger set-up for the change we will see in Christy.

Vince eased a wad of rope out of his jacket pocket. Let it dangle between his fingers, his eyes turning into slits. With an almost bored sniff, he planted his feet wide apart and began pulling the rope, inch by roughened inch, through his fist. Chin raised, he looked down upon Christy, smug, satisfied, distaste at her weakness curling one corner of his mouth.

“I have some special plans for you, girl.”

Notice the changed sentence rhythm to connote the more languid movement. The sentences become longer, some are complex sentences. We see some “ing” verbs. Notice also the subtexted dialogue. Special plans hardly mean fun in the sun. His meaning is clear because of what he's doing, not because of what he's saying. (Subtexting is a whole subject we have not tackled yet on this blog. We will at some point.)

With this kind of action on Vince’s part, the following sentences--Christy spied the rope—and knew. He was going to kill her.—become unnecessary. I don't think that line ever worked well anyway, because it was a telling sentence. We have now replaced it with action that helps us visualize the scene. And for me, his actions have so set up the threatening sentence we've added that I can hear it. I don't need to be told that his voice is low and hard and cold and sneering. I imagine all that because of the set-up.

She had to save herself. Do something. Her eyes darted, looking for a weapon. Straw bale. Horse comb. Saddle soap bottle.

Shovel.

It leaned against the wall by the door. Could she crawl fast enough?

Okay, first paragraph in this section is when the change in Christy will begin. She must decide to save herself. She has no choice now; it’s literally do or die. But what we currently have--She had to save herself. Do something--doesn't work for me. First, we've set up the rest of the scene enough now that the reader will expect for this change to take more time. Second, as far as action goes, we have time for more, because Vince is doing his play with the rope thing. We can afford a few sentences that will allow us to feel the passage of a few seconds.

So, BGs--how might you rewrite this part? Do I have any brave takers out there willing to post a try?

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Read Part 15

Editing, Day 12--Character Motivation

An interesting phenomenon is happening on this here blog. While y’all have gotten quieter on the comments, we have gained more readers. Go figure. I just think in this cyber space day and age, folks love to lurk. Brings out the kid in us, know what I mean? When I was young, I used to love sneaking around and trying to hide.

Lurker BGs, we love you.

We did have a few good comments yesterday regarding ideas of how to handle the CM in our action scene. They picked up on what I said yesterday—that CM has to begin at the beginning of the book. That we have to fully understand Vince’s evil and ability to do harm before he ever steps onto the scene.

We also need to know what happens in the scene before the excerpt we’ve been using. The author of our AS informs me of what we haven’t seen:

The scene takes place in Chapter 17 of the novel, and there are 21 chapters. We know a lot about Vince before it happens. Christy, a guilt-ridden alcoholic, lived with him for several months, but then she left when he hit her one too many times. That's her situation when the novel begins. Vince wants her to come back and he also wants her to do some shady things with him where they both work. She has just mustered up the courage to refuse him. Vince has been stalking her, and she suspects he is the arsonist who destroyed her apartment as well. Christy turns to her sister's cattle ranch for refuge. This is where she is in the AS, and Vince has basically decided if he can't have Christy, no one will.

When Vince shows up before our excerpt begins, Christy tries to act like she’s not scared. She tells him to leave and tries to get by him as she’s walking the horse out of the barn. At that point, our AS begins.

So how do we build on all this?

I have to admit, this CM stuff is hard for me to teach. Character reaction and emotions, which work as motivation for the next action, is something an author learns over time. It’s something I’ve learned to innately sense. But the way I get at it is to completely, unequivocally immerse myself in the POV character’s head. What is happening second by second? What is each thought, each action, each word? I figure those out, then decide which ones the rhythm of the scene will allow me to use.

For our AS there are two things I’d like to see accomplished. (1) I’d like to feel Christy’s fear more. Which means we need to see more internal and external reaction from her. But we don’t want to slow the scene down. (2) I’d like to see her turning point more acutely—when she decides she must defend herself.

He grabbed Christy’s arm, whipped her around. Her shoulder rammed into Spirit. The horse jerked up his head and jumped away. The reins ripped from her hand.

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head bounced sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

The above actions happen in seconds, bam-bam. I see no room for reaction before this. Next sentence is:

Spirit bolted out the door.

I see room for something before this sentence, and I sense the need for it. Think about it rhythmically. For Christy to stumble and for the horse to be rattled enough to bolt, you need a second or two. Time for a blitz thought to streak through Christy’s head. Now I don’t know whether this character would pray or not, but the sake of the rewrite, let’s assume she would. How about if we added:

Oh, God, please.

This added sentence will be in its own paragraph. The sequence will read like this:

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head bounced sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

Oh, God, please.

Spirit bolted out the door.

We really don’t have time for any more words than those three. Certainly not some telling sentence. Just a quick thought to let us feel her internal reaction of fear while we’re feeling her physical reaction to the pain. And at the same time we're adding a reactive emotion, we're adding a needed and logical beat of rhythm for the actions of the horse.

Vince grabbed Christy’s jacket and yanked her close. Rancid cigar breath poured over her. “Guess what. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” He punched her in the temple.

He grabs her, yanks her up close. If she’s smelling his breath, there’s a second or two in there while he’s exhaling in her face. Room for another quick reaction. I don’t want an internal one here, because we just had one, and you’ve really got to be careful about stringing actual thoughts (put in italics) too closely to one another. Even very quick thoughts, when arranged too closely, can make the scene feel slow. So I’d go for an external reaction that shows her fear. Because when she’s face to face with Vince, and he’s already hit her once, she’s got to know another blow is coming. So how about something like:

Vince grabbed Christy’s jacket and yanked her close. Rancid cigar breath poured over her. She trembled.

I don’t know about you, but with those two words added, suddenly I get this visual of the scene. I can see her nose to nose with him. I can feel her fear that more is coming.

To punch up that emotional beat even more, I'd cut the paragraph there and start a new one with Vince's next action.

Vince grabbed Christy’s jacket and yanked her close. Rancid cigar breath poured over her. She trembled.

“Guess what. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” He punched her in the temple.

We’ve only added two CM moments, but you should already be getting the picture of the kinds of things to go for. This is where SHOW is indeed so important. We have no time for a telling sentence. Ironically, the more we try to tell of emotions and thoughts, the less the reader will feel it, because we’re ruining the rhythm of the scene. Two words—Christy trembled—can replace a whole telling line that might read: She shook in fear, knowing he was going to hit her again. See how such a line, as well as being telling, totally throws off the rhythm?

Dear BGs, I know we’ve looked at this AS for so long, your eyes are probably crossing. And we’re to the point where we’re ready to talk about something else. But I don’t want to gloss over this very important concept. We’ll look at more of the scene tomorrow to see where else we can insert CM moments. For today—where else in the scene do you see a second or two for some emotion or reaction—and what might you place there?

More importantly, how can you apply these concepts to a crucial scene in your own wip?

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Read Part 14

Editing, Day 11--Character Motivation

Methinks y’all are tired of the sentence rhythm subject and are ready to move on. So we shall.

First, I must deal with this question from yesterday: Is it OK to mix tenses within a scene? In your examples from COLOR, you did switch from past to present (-ing) to note the passing of time. Someone told me I couldn't do that but when I write, I do mix tenses b/c of the rhythm.

I didn’t mix tenses, and perhaps you’re really not mixing them either. That’s why you may be confused. Putting a verb in participle form (-ing) doesn’t make it present tense. In fact, a participle form is only part of a complete verb. You need to add the state of being verb before it, and that is what makes the verb present or past tense—is winding, vs. was winding.
I crested a long grade, the hills on either side melting away, and slowed at the sight before me. Melting here is not a complete verb, and therefore it’s not in present tense. It’s part of an incomplete descriptive phrase. Winding through a bordering forest were the glimmering waters of the river. In this sentence the verb is past tense, although it’s split up. Winding . . . were = were winding. Past tense. The squall of the town seemed so removed from that that vista, the pulses of its rhythm fading long before they reached me. The verb of this sentence is seemed. The pulses of its rhythm fading is another incomplete phrase, used as description.

Clear as mud? You can always write me privately is this is still confusing.

Another question had to do with showing the actions of both hero and heroine in an intense scene as they try to get to each other during a fire. How to do that?

I'd use very short scenes, switching back and forth between POVs. (You see this in a book often--same chapter, but an extra space or perhaps a graphic between the paragraphs delineates a switch in scene.) As the intensity of the sequence increases, make each POV scene even shorter. You can even go down to one paragraph. The very act of jumping from one POV to another gives the choppy feel of rhythm you want. I did this in the crisis/climax sequence for Eyes of Elisha, when I had 3-4 characters all doing something at once at various points around a building.

Okay, on to character motivation. (Called CM. What else?)

How to teach this? All I know at this point is that I’m likely to spend several days on it. I saved the hardest for last. So much of this is conceptual. It’s a sense that writers have to develop. It’s not just a bunch of rules I can list. (Come to think of it, I suppose sentence rhythm is much the same way.)

First, I suppose I should define what I mean by character motivation. It’s a pretty loose term here, I’ll admit. I’m talking about what makes the character do what he/she does. And what the character’s thinking at the moment. I’m also talking about emotions, internal reactions. (Which will lead to further action.)

We will eventually edit our AS for character motivation. In order to do that fairly, I’ll need to show you a little more of what happened in the scene before our actual excerpt. But for now I want to lay some foundation for the concept. Stick with me as I try to make sense of this. Examples to follow, which should help clarify.

Here are some principles/guidelines I use for establishing the CM needed for a particular scene:

1. It doesn’t start in that scene. The foundation for effective CM starts on the first page of your book.

In my suspenses, I start the book writing toward the crisis/climax. One of the conventions in the suspense genre is that the protagonist ends up in big, bad danger. Often mortal danger. These have to be intense scenes. If I’m going to write an effective crisis/climax, with my protagonist up against the bad guy, I have to establish her motivation for terror during those scenes. I can’t stop the scene at the time and explain to the reader that this guy really is big, really is bad, and really does want to kill her. That information has to come in all the pages leading up to these scenes.

2. Emotions in the current scene must arise naturally and in logical progression from all the CM created before.

When my protagonist is up against big, bad guy, and I’ve shown (not told) the reader throughout the book that the guy is evil, it will then be natural for her to feel terror, to understand that her life is on the line. So that foundation’s in place before the scene even begins. But as the scene progresses, the protagonist will undergo shifts in her emotions. (She’d better, or the scene will go nowhere.) Those shifts have to be logical, and based upon what has gone before.

3. At the point when there’s a shift in the protagonist’s emotion that will therefore lead to a change in action, the motivation has to be further layered in. In other words, this is a key point for additional CM.

Example, using our AS:

(Point #1) In order to fully feel the intensity of this scene through Christy’s POV, we need to feel her fear. In order to feel her fear, we have to know—before Vince ever materializes—that he’s a big, bad guy and he’ll do her harm. Which means from the first time Vince is mentioned, the author of our AS must be writing toward this scene. Even if we never meet Vince until this scene, we can learn of him through Christy’s thoughts of what he’s done, and perhaps through her conversation with others about him. And maybe a conversation with him over the phone.

(Point #2) If everything above is laid in effectively, when the scene begins, the very appearance of Vince will make the reader tense—before Vince even does anything. In that crucial moment of his appearance, we definitely want an emotional, internal reaction from Christy. (Again, this part of the scene has been off camera so far. I’ll need to remedy that.)

(Point #3) Christy’s emotions need to progress logically from the first two points. We see this occur pretty well in the scene. At first Christy feels fear and plays the hapless victim. Then—a turning point. She sees him pull out the rope—and realizes this time he will kill her. This is another crucial moment in which we want to see further layering of CM. Christy’s emotional reaction to the fact that Vince plans to kill her changes her action. She moves from playing victim to trying to save herself.

Now I haven’t read the rest of the book, so I don’t know what CM has been layered in before our scene. I’m guessing that up to this point Christy has always been the victim. If that’s true, her change here from victim to fighting back is HUGE. The reader needs to feel that hugeness. It’s a major change in CM. Yet it takes place in a matter of seconds, because that’s all the time she has.

If you’ll remember, the original AS had a few sentences of character motivation at that turning point. During our SR edit, I took most of them out. Why would I do such a silly thing when I just told you they’re necessary? I suppose I shall half to explain myself by and by.

Question to leave you with: How can we effectively convey this major change in Christy’s CM and yet use few enough words that we don’t mess up the rhythm of our action scene?

Hit me with some answers.

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Read Part 13

Editing, Day 10--Sentence Rhythm

Happy Monday, BGs. This is the last post on sentence rhythm unless you all come up with numerous questions that need to be addressed.

We have some loose ends regarding SR to tie up before we move on to character motivation. First, there were some questions/comments from last Friday’s rewrite. Dineen wondered about this paragraph: “Too late, Christy.” He dragged her to her feet, shoved her against the stall door. The metal latch bit into her back. She moaned. “No more chances for you.”

Dineen said: “I keep hearing that I should give each character their own paragraph, so when I saw, "She moaned." on this line and then another quote from Vince, it threw me. What’s the rule of thumb?”

Dineen’s right that the rule of thumb is to start a new paragraph for a different character’s response. In this case, I don’t think it’s that necessary. Mainly because we’re already in the POV of Christy. We see her feel the metal latch at her back, and she moans as a result. I suppose you could separate the sentence out if you wanted to. Or maybe put the two lines together: The metal latch bit into her back and she moaned. Now if we were talking about a third character here, who said something in response to what Vince did to Christy, then, yes, that response would definitely need its own paragraph.

On our discussion board, Becky noted using sentence rhythm to improve an action scene in her wip, but bemoaned the fact that she ended up with a lot of subject/verb short sentences, and that became monotonous in a hurry. Agreed, that choppy subject/verb/direct object format can’t go on for very long. This is one aspect of sentence rhythm we still have to talk about. How do you keep up the swift-moving rhythm in a high action scene, yet change the sentences enough to keep it from getting monotonous?

Let’s look at these two paragraphs from our AS:

He grabbed Christy’s arm, whipped her around. Her shoulder rammed into Spirit. The horse jerked up his head and jumped away. The reins ripped from her hand.

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head bounced sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

We’ve got some fast action here, and the sentence rhythm pretty well conveys that. Yet the sentences don’t “beat out” all the same. As these paragraphs illustrate, here are some ways to vary your rhythm in an action scene.

1. Make a longer sentence by stringing together two verbs. He grabbed Christy’s arm, whipped her around. You can use “and” in the middle if you like, which gives you a compound sentence. Now before y’all start hollering, yes, I know I advocated staying away from compound sentences in action scenes. And in general you want to. But you’ve got to balance the choppy beat thing with variation. Everything in moderation. The key to occasionally using a compound sentence effectively in an action scene is to string together two short phrases. If they’re short and tightly written, the sentence won’t come across as long and languid. It’ll come across as swift-moving, without being quite so choppy, which will give your rhythm a little variation. This is why I like to drop to and—to keep both phrases as tight as possible. But even that can’t be done all the time.

2. Use a short description phrase at the end of a sentence. Her head bounced sideways, pain exploding through her face. Don’t put this phrase in the beginning, or you’ll make your reader wade through too much to get to that all-important subject/verb.

3. Throw in an extra short sentence. Christy stumbled.

4. Use a one-word phrase instead of a full sentence. Thud. The back side smacked Vince in the head. He gasped, staggered sideways, momentarily stunned. The rope slipped from his hands. Christy threw the shovel aside. Move! Here we have two one-word phrases. Note that one uses sound—a result of Christy swinging the shovel at Vince’s head (in previous paragraph). The other uses interior monologue—Christy telling herself to Move! Both flow well with what’s happening in the scene and give that bit of break in the rhythm.

Okay. I think we’ve covered sentence rhythm in action scenes pretty thoroughly. On the flip side, when you’re not in a high action scene, when you’re in a narrative paragraph, or interior monologue, or quiet moment in a character’s life, you can let your sentences flow longer, and make more use of compound and complex sentences. However, you still have to employ a certain amount of variation in sentence structure and length to keep those sentences from getting monotonous. But variation is not quite as much of an issue in long-sentenced passages as it is in short-sentenced ones. Those long sentences don’t tend to get as monotonous quite so quickly. But there are still some issues to watch.

Consider these paragraphs from my novel Color the Sidewalk for Me. (As darkness is falling, a fearful Celia is nearing her home town, which she fled after tragedy 17 years before.)

I crested a long grade, the hills on either side melting away, and slowed at the sight before me. Bradleyville spread demurely in the valley below, its lights a tiny silver bracelet against the flesh of the shadowed hills. Winding through a bordering forest were the glimmering waters of the river. The buildings and machinery of the lumber mill built by my great-grandfather jutted into the sky above the riverbank, boldly silent against a scrim of nascent stars.

The otherworldliness of the scene was too much to absorb. Something was missing, something important. The squall of the town seemed so removed from that that vista, the pulses of its rhythm fading long before they reached me. Yet for so many years the town’s effect on me had been so strong. Looking down on Bradleyville, I wondered at its seeming insignificance.

I want to point out some ways I chose to use sentence rhythm to convey Celia’s emotions, and also how I chose to vary these sentences a bit. Now again, you may not agree with everything I did, which is fine. But this was my thinking, anyway.

1. hills on either side melting away—this “ing” verb phrase gives the idea of the passage of time (however few moments or even seconds that may be). I thought it worked better than to use melted. This phrase, sandwiched in between two regular past tense verb phrases, gave it even more of a contrast.

2. Winding through a bordering forest . . . Here I used descriptive phrase up front for a little variation.

3. The buildings and machinery . . . This sentence also has a descriptive phrase, but this one’s at the end. This is why I wrote the previous sentence with its phrase up front. One rule of thumb for me: I try not to write two complex sentences beginning with a descriptive phrase in a row.

4. The otherworldliness of the scene . . . Compared with the previous sentences, this one is short. It should be. It’s a harder hitting thought of Celia, whereas before she was simply noticing the scenery. To give this sentence some oomph, I made it shorter.

5. Something was missing, something important. Same thing here. A shorter sentence for harder hitting effect. Yet with the intentional use of something twice, the sentences has a different rhythm from the one before it.

6. The squall of the town . . . Purposeful use of the “ing” verb fading to connote a passage of time. The phrase the pulses of its rhythm fading long before they reached me beats out like a fading rhythm. You’ve got pulses and rhythm with strong beats on the first syllable, then the “ing” verb, then long before they reached me. None of those last five words has a strong emphasis. Even the two-syllable word before doesn’t have a strong beat in its emphasized syllable. By stringing together numerous words with no strong beat among them, I got the effect I wanted—the sense of a fading rhythm.

7. Looking down on Bradleyville, I wondered at its seeming insignificance. The last phrase of these two paragraphs is an important point, and the one this passage should end on. Insignificance is the right word, and its beat again has no syllable that’s strongly emphasized.

Now, why do we bother? Does a reader read such paragraphs and go, “Wow, great sentence rhythm!?” Afraid not. As I said when we started discussing this subject, SR is subliminal. But subliminal can be very powerful. With effective SR, what the reader will see is the proper flow of sentences to match the beat of the scene. And the flow won’t become obtrusive by falling into monotony. The result is a scene in which the actions and emotions can pop out, unhindered by faulty sentences or a rhythm that works against the beat of the scene. With effective SR, your readers may not be able to point out why your passages work—they’ll just know they do.

All right, question/comment away as you like. We’ll move on to character motivation as we’re able.

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Read Part 12

Editing, Day 9--Sentence Rhythm/Tight Writing

Today I take the plunge and edit our entire AS for sentence rhythm and tight writing.

I’m going to run our last version of the scene (6/17, edited for action/reaction sequence) here again just to make it easier for you to compare the old and new. Then I’ll run my edited version. Two things to keep in mind. (1) Remember, this is my voice—not the way to write the scene. You should take what you’ve learned so far and edit the scene the way you’d like to see it. (2) The scene isn’t finalized yet. We have one more technique to cover—character motivation. Some of that technique crept into my editing here, no doubt. It’s hard for me to separate them. But as we look at character motivation next week, I’ll probably make some adjustments.

Okay. To refresh your memory, here’s our version from last week:

In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head jerked sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

Vince grabbed a fistful of her jacket and stuck his face in hers. His stale cigar breath assaulted her. “It’s time you learned something, Darling. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. If she resisted, he’d make it worse. “Vince, please, don’t.”

“You pitiful excuse for a woman.” He hit her again, a swift bash on her left temple. The blow blackened the room, fuzzed its edges. She fought against the dizziness.

Vince threw her to the floor. “Worthless piece of trash.”

She pled with her eyes. “If you just leave me alone . . . I . . . I promise I’ll never tell a soul what you did. Just let me go. Why won’t you let me go?”

He dragged her up by the jacket again and shoved her against the stall door. The metal latch bit into her back. She groaned.

“Oh, it’s too late, Christy. I’ve given you more than enough chances.”

“Please. . .”

He backhanded her across the face. Pain shot through her nose. She crumpled to her knees, hands flying to the wound. Warm blood dripped into her fingers.

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re certainly nothing to look at.”

She peered up at the caricature of his once handsome face. How could she ever have loved this man?

Vince pulled a wad of rope out of his jacket pocket. “Not even worth the air you breath.”

That’s when the truth seized her. He’d played with her. Now he would kill her, and every ounce of survival instinct she had kicked in. She searched for a weapon. Bale of straw. Horse comb. Bottle of saddle soap. Shovel. She locked onto that. It leaned against the wall by the door. Could she crawl fast enough?

Vince kicked her in the thigh. “Get up.”

Christy struggled to rise in a slow, defeated way, but the second she gathered her feet underneath herself, she lunged for the door, and the shovel. Grasping the handle with both hands, she willed her eyes to focus on Vince, and swung it at his head.

The back of the shovel smacked Vince with a revolting thud. He gasped and staggered sideways, momentarily stunned. The rope slipped from his hands. Christy froze, shocked she’d actually wounded him. What was she doing? She had to get of here! Move!

Christy ran out of the barn, blood dripping and her head spinning. Into the yard, past the pickups. The house! Get to the house! Lock the door. Maybe she could grab a gun before Vince could break in.

And then she spotted the most beautiful creature in the entire world, Spirit, a snowy apparition posed in the middle of the yard, waiting for her. For a split second she wavered. Should she race for the house or gamble on mounting the gelding in her woozy state?

Vince forced her choice. He burst from the barn doorway, his eyes ablaze. She could not reach the house.

Adrenaline propelled her to Spirit, and she frantically gathered the reins, struggling to get her foot in the stirrup.She threw a look backward. Vince streaked toward her.Clutching Spirit’s mane, she summoned all her strength, and launched herself upon his back.
--------------------------------

Here’s the edited version, using compression and SR. I’ll have a few comments at the end.

He grabbed Christy’s arm, whipped her around. Her shoulder rammed into Spirit. The horse jerked up his head and jumped away. The reins ripped from her hand.

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head bounced sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

Vince grabbed Christy’s jacket and yanked her close. Rancid cigar breath poured over her. “Guess what. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” He punched her hard in the temple.

The blow blackened the world, fuzzed its edges. Dizziness coiled through Christy.

Vince threw her to the floor. “Piece of trash.”

She drew a shaky breath, struggled to raise her head. “Vince, stop. Please.”

“Too late, Christy.” He dragged her to her feet, shoved her against the stall door. The metal latch bit into her back. She moaned. “No more chances for you.”

He backhanded her face. Pain shot through her nose. She crumpled to her knees, hands flying to the wound. Blood dripped on her fingers.

“Look at you.” His tone sneered. “So ugly. What did I ever see in you?”

She cradled her nose, straining for air. Hating him. How could she have loved this man?

Vince pulled a wad of rope out of his jacket pocket.

Christy spied the rope—and knew. He was going to kill her.

She had to save herself. Do something. Her eyes darted, looking for a weapon. Straw bale. Horse comb. Saddle soap bottle.

Shovel.

It leaned against the wall by the door. Could she crawl fast enough?

Vince kicked her in the thigh. “Get up.”

Christy rose slowly, feigning defeat, then lunged for the shovel. Grabbed its handle with both hands—and swung with all her might.

Thud. The back side smacked Vince in the head. He gasped, staggered sideways, momentarily stunned. The rope slipped from his hands. Christy threw the shovel aside. Move!

She scuttled from the barn, blood dripping and head spinning. Into the yard, past the pickups. Get to the house, lock the door! She’d find a gun, be ready for Vince—

Spirit.

The horse stood in the yard. Waiting for her. Christy wavered. Could she mount him in her dizziness?

Vince burst from the barn doorway, his eyes ablaze. Coming for her.

She would never make the house.

Adrenaline propelled her to Spirit. Frantically, she gathered the reins. Struggled for footing in the stirrup. She missed it, stumbled back. Tried again.

She threw a look over her shoulder. Vince streaked toward her, fifteen feet away. Ten.

With a cry, Christy sought the stirrup. Found it. She clutched Spirit’s mane like a lifeline, summoned her strength—and launched herself upon his back.
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Notes:

(1) The scene has less words, yet has greater impact. In deleting some actions and dialogue, we have a tighter scene, and now the action can really pop. This is the irony of effective SR and compression—less really does become more.

(2) In a few places I used paragraph changes to break up an action/reaction sequence. This adds choppiness and the feeling of swift-moving action. The main one to point out is the one-word paragraph, Spirit. The previous version had this looong sentence to show Christy noticing the horse. That lengthy sentence really slowed the action. At that moment, in Christy’s head is the do-or-die focus on reaching the house. Then, suddenly, she sees the horse—and a new idea springs into her mind. This should be shown with split-second timing. The dash, showing her thought cut in mid-stream, followed by the one-word paragraph Spirit gave me the effect I wanted.

(3) In other places I added in beats to increase tension. Main example is when Christy is struggling to put her foot in the stirrup. I wanted to show her struggling—while Vince is getting closer.

Okay, edit me all you want for SR and compression. Just remember we're not completely done with the scene yet. It's a good thing to edit me, because the whole point of this is to discover how these techniques work in your own voice.

On to greater heights with character motivation next week.
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Read Part 11

Editing, Day 8--Sentence Rhythm/Tight Writing

Those of you who left comments yesterday—thank you so much. It’s very gratifying to hear from folks out there in cyberspace that our discussion is helpful to you. Kelly, congrats on joining ACFW and signing up for the conference. Anyone else out there attending this conference for the first time—do sign up for the mentor program. It’ll help you navigate your way through the weekend.

And yes, we will figure out some way to have a BG shindig while we’re there.

Okay. We are moving toward editing our entire AS for sentence rhythm and tight writing. So far we’ve talked quite a bit about sentence rhythm. I think you all are getting the idea of the various ways it can be used to create the beat of a scene. This is a concept you don’t just study, then forget. You need to practice it all the time in your daily writing. It’ll become second nature to you.

Today I’m going to talk about tight writing. This goes hand in hand with SR—you can’t do one effectively without the other. In Getting Into Character (Secret #6), I call tight writing compression. Compression means finding verbs, adjectives and nouns that are packed with meaning. When you choose just the right word you’ll eliminate a lot of unnecessary ones, and your writing will be more vivid.

Now, really, this is not rocket science. Most of you out there are probably saying, “Tell me something new.” True, this isn’t new. Yet effective compression and vividness is not found all the time in our writing. We know in our heads that it’s needed. But we sure have to work at doing it.

With apologies to those who’ve read Getting Into Character, I’d like to use another example from the book to show the effects of tight writing. I can get away with using this example because it’s my own work. This is the opening paragraph of Chapter One in my very first book, a true crime called A Question of Innocence. Readers of this book, due to the cover and back marketing copy, know that in this first chapter, Sharri Moore is going to pick up her 14-year-old daughter’s diary and discover a shocking entry—the teenager’s confession to killing her little sister (who died inexplicably in her sleep a few months before). Even with that set-up of the diary’s importance, this first example paragraph, written without compression, falls flat. It has too many words, and therefore no vividness. It just don’t zing.

Sharri Moore had read her daughter’s diaries more times than she could remember. She had to, Sharri rationalized as she looked at Serena’s blue-flowered journal lying on the desk. Sometimes she found important things in the diaries. A lot of the entries were just teenage stuff—about girls who’d been kind to Serena only to be mad at her the next day. Serena would write about these girls with anger and confused betrayal. Other entries were about daydreams or hope-for things. But sometimes the entries showed aspects of Serena that she would never reveal. Sharri considered these entries nuggets of gold.

Man. Loose writing. Boring. Doesn’t grab me at all. Here’s the real version as it appears in the book, using compression.

When it came to her daughter’s diary, Sharri Moore was a snoop. And with good reason, she thought, eyeing Serena’s blue-flowered journal as it lay on the desk. Buried among the fantasies, the teenage yearnings, the diatribes against snotty schoolgirls who dangled their friendship like candy beyond a baby’s reach, lay occasional nuggets of gold. Glints of the real Serena.

A lot less words. Yet deeper meaning. Definitely more oomph. Here are some specific examples of how compression turned this paragraph around.

1. Had read her daughter’s diary more times than she could remember—this entire phrase is replaced by the word snoop. Snoop is the perfect word for this line. It connotes not only the tendency to peek into others’ affairs, but to do it consciously and consistently.

2. Looked—changed to eyeing. A more intense verb. And one of those present participles, that connotes passage of time.

3. Sometimes she found important things in the diaries, and A lot of the entries were just teenage stuff—two telling sentences taken out.

4. Daydreams—changed to fantasies. Stronger word.

5. Hope-for-things—becomes teenage yearnings. Again stronger.

6. Sentences about other girls and Serena’s reaction to them now use vivid words such as diatribes, snotty, dangled friendship. The simile like candy beyond a baby’s reach conjures the mental picture of how tantalizing these fickle friendships were to Serena.

7. Sometimes the entries showed aspects of Serena she would never reveal—changed to Glints of the real Serena. This picks up on the nuggets of gold metaphor.

Although this book was written over ten years ago, I distinctly remember writing this paragraph. (I tend to write things the way I want them the first time around, rather than getting anything on paper and fixing it later.) Because it was the first paragraph, I really wanted it compressed and vivid. I spent a long time on this paragraph, getting the words just right. Looking at it years later, I don’t reckon I’d change a thing. And that’s highly unusual, ’cause often I’ll look at a formerly written passage and go, “Sheesh, what was I thinking?”

At any rate, I think you get the picture. Rocket science? No. Hard work, paragraph after paragraph? Yes. It’s when we let ourselves slip in the compression department that we fall into ho-hum writing. The ideas and actions are there, sure. But the writing just doesn’t move you. Further, without compression, we can't even begin to deal effectively with sentence rhythm.

As for our AS, some of it uses compression, and some places need tightening. I really haven’t looked at it yet to see how I will edit in this department. Perhaps I shall put my money where my mouth is, and get to that tomorrow. Then you all can edit me and tell me where more compression is yet needed. Oh, boy. Nothin’ like writing a scene by committee.

Love to you all, BGs.

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Read Part 10

Editing, Day 7--Sentence Rhythm

Before we return to editing our action scene, I want to say a few more things about sentence rhythm. In our editing, we are focusing on using rhythm for action. But as I mentioned yesterday, sentence rhythm is used to convey all kinds of “beats”—from high action to the quietest of scenes.

Even in high intensity scenes, there are some exceptions to the short sentence = high action guideline. The first exception involves scenes of action so intense that the action moves into chaos. In a fight scene, such as our AS, we can delineate each action. They’re sequential in nature. Vince grabs Christy. Christy rams into horse. Horse jumps. But in scenes of utter chaos, many things are happening at once. The characters are so bombarded by stimuli that they don’t have time to react to individual pieces of action.

For the beat of chaos, I suggest using the sentence rhythm of long, strung-together sentences to convey continuous, confusing action.

You can’t do this for very long. Like any other rhythm, this one will get tiring, too. But for a few sentences, or even a paragraph or two, it can really be effective. To create chaos, try using those complex sentences we’ve avoided in regular action. Use past participle verbs. Even write run-on sentences. Do whatever you must in order for your sentences to beat the rhythm of chaos and confusion. If you handle this right, your readers will feel the chaos.

In Getting Into Character I quote a paragraph from A Tale of Two Cities, in which the revolutionaries have cornered their old foe, Fallon. Long moments of tension follow as they confront and watch him. Then, suddenly, the crowd lunges to lynch him, and chaos erupts. Look at what happens to Dickens’ sentences at that moment:

Down and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on his knees, now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement agony of action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one another back that they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go—as a cat might have done to a mouse—and silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought her; the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth.

Whew! That’s one sentence. But you can really feel the chaos. This kind of rhythm is very effective when juxtaposed against the short, choppy rhythm of sequential action. As soon as the chaos stops, and you’re back to linear action, you can shorten the sentences again.

There’s another way you can use a long, flowing sentence rhythm in the midst of high action. That’s when, in the midst of the action, something so crucial happens that the POV character sees it almost in slow motion. It’s a moment of intense importance. A moment that seems to last forever. This kind of sentence rhythm doesn’t go as far as the chaos rhythm, but it does stretch everything out for those few seconds.

Here’s a scene from my novel Dread Champion, as I would edit it today. This is a dream, so the verbs are in present tense. (I always write dreams in present tense, because dreams happen in the now.) Kerra is dreaming of a real incident in her life that plagues her. My goal here was to use sentence rhythm to convey quick action surrounded by seemingly stretched out action—as Kerra remembers the terrifying moments.

Rain pounds the windshield of Dave’s car. Kerra senses the motion of driving, feels the familiar fabric of the seat beneath her.

From nowhere a high-sided truck leaps into view. Its brake lights reflect blood red through the rain. A back tire bursts, flaps in the wind. The truck swerves left into their lane.

“Dave!” The scream rips from Kerra’s throat.

Dave veers his Acura to the right.

Something jolts inside Kerra, and the picture transforms into cruel slow motion.

Her hands rising to her mouth, her hair floating around her face, sticking to her tongue. Dave’s head slowly turning, his eyes drifting too late behind him to check for traffic, his head turning back. The squeal of tires against wet pavement, sounding on and on like a stuck record as their car merges onto that record, revolving, revolving, the world spinning, the tree, its bark shiny with rain, disappearing, cycling closer, disappearing, cycling closer. Nausea rising in Kerra’s stomach . . .

A distant horn blares and weeps, ramming the scene into warp speed. The tree rushes at them. Dave yanks the wheel harder to the right. The tree jumps left. The smash deafens the world and everything in it. It splinters and grinds and tears and shatters. The left front of the car dissolves. A ragged branch explodes through the windshield. Crunches Dave’s shoulder. His head snaps back, his eyes glaze. The steering wheel crumples toward him, buries itself in his stomach. Dave’s jaw sags. Blood, dark and thick, bubbles over his bottom teeth.

Somebody screams. Kerra feels the gush of air through her own mouth.

Dave lifts dazed eyes to her.

The scene freezes, just for a moment. A moment hanging in the air, fuzzed at the edges, like a paused frame on a home video. Kerra’s eyes lock onto Dave’s, reading their pain, their utter disbelief, their hopelessness. Shock immobilizes her. She wants to reach for him but cannot. She gazes deeply into his eyes—and she knows. They remain fixed, and she sees life ebbing from them, as a wave would pull back from shore. The wave recedes . . . recedes . . . recedes . . . then is gone. The eyes settle, flatten, like sand once the water has passed. The lids slowly droop shut.

Kerra cries out. She reaches for him, the man who has become her world, who would be her husband. “Dave! Dave!” Her cries sear her throat, the world blurring. She grasps his head, her fingers sinking into his thick dark hair, her arms shaking him, shaking him. She lets go and his head sinks to his chest. She grabs it again, shaking it, sobbing his name, pleading to God to save him, save him, save him . . .

You can see how I tried to go in and out of sequential action. Short, choppy sentences with regular verbs, then long, drawn-out sentences with participle verbs. At the moment of impact, because I’d done enough of the drawn-out sentences, I stayed with regular verbs. But by stringing four together in one sentence with and in between (splinters and grinds and tears and shatters), I was able to create the sense of elongated sound as the car crunches and finally grinds to a halt.

We will return to editing our AS for action. But these different uses of sentence rhythm are important. I want to explain the whole concept, not just the kind of sentence rhythm we are focusing on at present. Basically, once you understand sentence rhythm, you can use it to create any kind of beat. You can place your reader deep in the POV character’s head, making that reader feel everything that the character feels. As the character is bombarded, the reader is bombarded.

You might want to practice the varying rhythm we've discussed today for one of your own scenes.

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Read Part 9

Editing Day 6--Sentence Rhythm/Tight Writing

Welcome back to our editing, BGs. Glad to see y’all starting to use the discussion board. And a number of you wrote comments about the question we ended with yesterday—all good thoughts.

I’m going to talk about sentence rhythm today. If you master this concept, a lot of what you need for tight writing will naturally fall into place. For those of you who’ve read Getting Into Character, some of this will be a repeat of information from Secret #6. You may want to go back and re-read that chapter, and take the time to re-read the example scenes from classic and contemporary literature exemplifying effective use of sentence rhythm (which we’ll call SR). At the same time, readers of GIC, don’t think there will be nothing new for you here. Trying to please all, dontcha know.

For those of you who haven’t read Getting Into Character—an explanatory note. My book takes seven techniques from the art of Method acting and adapts them for the novelist’s use. That’s why the concepts you see in the book aren’t covered in the typical how-to-write-fiction book. Sentence rhythm in particular is one thing I use a lot in my writing. I think it’s a very important technique, and frankly, I hadn’t heard it talked about elsewhere. This isn’t that difficult of a concept to explain. Learning how to use it effectively is another matter.

SR is a subliminal thing to the reader. If you use it effectively, you won’t hear readers say, “Man, you have great sentence rhythm.” What they’ll say is, “I felt the scene. I was there.” That’s about the best compliment an author can hear.

Concept Premise: All sentences have an underlying rhythm that comes from the way the sentence is written, not from the content of the sentence. It’s like saying a song has a certain beat, regardless of the lyrics. When you fail to employ SR correctly, you’re likely to write sentences that give off a beat which is exactly opposite from the “feel” you want to create in the scene. You end up fighting yourself.

The rhythm of your sentences should match the beat of action in your scene.

Long sentences tend to have a lulling rhythm. (When I say long, I’m referring to both compound and complex sentences.) Long sentences don’t beat out “action.” They have more of an introspective, thoughtful kind of beat. Again, remember, this has nothing to do with what the sentence is saying. It’s the underlying beat of how the sentence is written. Short sentences, on the other hand, have a more choppy, action-oriented beat. Phrases can be even more choppy, even jarring.

This phenomenon works for two reasons. One is the time it takes to read a sentence. Time to read sentences in a story mimics the passage of time for the character in that scene. For example, all of you have written a piece of dialogue at some point that required one character to pause. Instead of writing, “He paused,” you may have written a sentence or two of something the character’s thinking. In the time it takes for the reader to read those sentences, the idea of the passage of time has occurred. The reader understands that the character paused. So—long sentences, taking more time to read, tend to give the idea of the passage of time. Short sentences, quickly read, give the idea of quick action.

Second reason for this phenomenon is that short sentences get to the verb much more quickly. And in action, the verb is the most important word. Action is all about—what happens, then what happens, then what happens. In other words, the verb. When you write long sentences, particularly complex sentences, which start with a descriptive phrase, the reader has to read through that phrase to even get to the subject, much less the verb. This takes too much time and won’t connote quick action.

Therefore--when you’re writing action, your sentences should shorten. When you want to write really heavy action, you can even go to mere phrases.

Ironically, even when we know this principle, it's so easy to overwrite. We figure adding in phrases and description will make the reader feel the scene more, when the opposite is true. Extra description only adds length and a "weighty" feeling to the sentences. We want to get to the pure action.

As for the verbs themselves, in action sequences, use regular past tense verbs as opposed to past participles. (She ran vs. she was running.) Those “ing” verbs tend to connote action over a space of time.

So there you have it. Quick recap: All sentences have rhythm. Long sentences tend to have a languid rhythm, while short ones have a more choppy, action-oriented rhythm. So use short sentences when you’re writing action.

Easy enough, right? The challenges arise when you have a fairly lengthy action scene. To use short sentence after short sentence of subject, verb; subject, verb is going to get monotonous in a hurry. And when a beat gets monotonous, it loses its oomph. So even in high action scenes, the rhythm has to be varied to a degree.

Or take the opposite kind of scene. An introspective, character-sitting-on-the-bed-ruminating scene. This requires longer sentences to match the beat of the character. But one long sentence after another after another is going to get tiring. Again, the rhythm must be varied.

In light of everything we’ve just covered, let’s look at the first paragraph of our AS:

In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

We have a problem here. Very fast action. Yet two long sentences. In the time it takes you to read those two sentences, do you feel the beat of fast action? I feel removed from it. I feel like I’m reading a narrative voice rather than being in the head of the POV character, who’s having these things done to her. Her beat is bam, bam, bam—before she can hardly blink an eye. In fact, the first sentence even tells us this all happens “in an instant.” But I don’t get that “instant” feeling from these sentences.

We want shorter sentences here. Especially because this is the beginning of a true knock-down, drag-out fight. The rhythm of the scene suddenly changes. The reader should feel that jarring change--because the POV character feels it.

To shorten the sentences for better rhythm, we could just break them up: In an instant, he spun her whole body around. Her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away. The reins ripped out of her hand.

Now that’s better already. Shorter sentences, with more of a jarring feeling. And the last verb ripping changes to the quicker feeling ripped. But the sentences can be even shorter without losing a single detail. We have words that simply don’t need to be there. And any extra word will weight the sentence down, giving it a heavier, longer feel—opposite from the beat we want to create.

In an instant: we don’t need this phrase. If we write the sentences correctly, they’ll feel instantaneous, and we won’t need to “tell” this.

He spun: spun has the connotation of a continuous whirl. I’d use a faster feeling verb like whipped. But I also think we need the action right before that, which would have to be his grabbing her arm to whip her around. Because the first thing the POV character is going to feel is that grab.

Whole body: don’t need this either. If he spins her around, we can assume her whole body goes with her.

Pummel: a good, strong verb on the surface. But pummel means to beat—that is, hit something more than once. It connotes repeated action, and therefore the passage of time. I’d change this word to ram.

The horse panicked: don’t need this. Let’s show a little more of what the horse does, and we’ll understand he panicked.

Ripped out of: that’s okay, but it can be shortened to ripped from.

He grabbed Christy’s arm, whipped her around. Her shoulder rammed into Spirit. The horse jerked up his head. Jumped away. The reins ripped from her hand.

Notice what the dropping of and does. (Instead of . . . grabbed Christy’s arms and whipped . . .) Dropping and throws two intense verbs and actions close to one another in a jarring sort of way.

Overall, for this paragraph, we now have four short, choppy sentences and one phrase. We want a particularly jarring feeling to launch us into the fight sequence. I think this paragraph works. Even with the choppiness, we've varied the rhythm a bit. But we’ll need to change the rhythm further in the next paragraph so it doesn’t get monotonous.

Important note: I repeat what I said last Friday. These edits are my interpretation of using these concepts. You might use the concept a little differently. (For example, you might not like my dropping of the word and.) My edit is not the right way to do it. And my edit will end up in my voice. I don’t want to take your voice away from you. This is why a real editor doesn’t rewrite; he/she only points out weaknesses. I’m rewriting to give you concrete examples of how I’d use the concept. But when I do this, please look at the rewrites in light of the concept we’re discussing, then see how you might rewrite them.

More SR rewriting tomorrow.

Comments?

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Read Part 8

New Blog Look/New Discussion Board

Happy Monday, BGs.

As you can see, the blog has a new look. A couple months ago my Web site was completely changed to reflect my new “Seatbelt Suspense” look. However, I hadn’t gotten around to changing the blog accordingly. This weekend, my wonderful assistant made that happen.

AND—drum roll, please. We now have our own discussion board. (Thanks again to my assistant.) Link to the board is on the left. Please make yourselves at home and chat there as you like. Anyone can start a new topic, and you can answer back and forth as long as you wish.

Don’t forget you also can still leave comments at the bottom of each post.

Also, thanks to an e-mail I received from a new blog reader over the weekend, I have included a link (over to your left) directly to an announcement on the discussion board that contains the key to our shortened italics titles (like “BGs”) so that newcomers can quickly catch up on our unique blogspeak. I’ll update the list as needed.

Due to all these changes over the weekend, I’m going to keep this post short today and let y’all go check out the new discussion board.

Tomorrow we will go back to our edit as promised. We’ll start talking about sentence rhythm and tight writing. Those of you who have Getting Into Character might want to refer to Secret #6 in the book—Restraint and Control. This chapter includes the techniques we’ll be discussing tomorrow.

For now, something to think about. Here’s the first paragraph from our AS:

In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

Consider each separate beat of action in these two sentences:

He spun her around
Shoulder pummeled horse
Horse panicked
Horse jumped away
Reins ripped from hand

How quickly does all this happen? Do the sentences in their present form have a rhythm that matches the fast beat of this action? Whadya think?

More tomorrow.

Editing, Day 5--Action/Reaction Sequence

Thanks for the comments yesterday about some further action/reaction sequence issues in our AS. Wayne and Stuart both caught some problems. Today I’m going to finish the rest of the A/R sequence edit. I didn’t find as many problems in the rest of the scene—most of the them occurred in the beginning, as we saw yesterday. Some of my changes fix illogical sequences. Some fill in gaps. In one—where Christy’s nose is bloodied, I felt Christy should feel the pain before the blood appears. Today's changes will be in red. These scene will include what we did yesterday, so you can see the scene in total, edited for A/Rs (and everything else that we’ve done so far).

Of course, in rewriting this, I’m making decisions that the author of our AS may not want to make. And inevitably, I end up writing in my voice rather than hers. So the last thing I’d want to suggest is that this rewrite is the only way to go. It’s simply my way of fixing the problems—you may think of other ways.

At the end of this scene I’ll introduce our next big challenge for Monday.
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In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head jerked sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

Vince grabbed a fistful of her jacket and stuck his face in hers. His stale cigar breath assaulted her. “It’s time you learned something, Darling. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. If she resisted, he’d make it worse. “Vince, please, don’t.”

“You pitiful excuse for a woman.” He hit her again, a swift bash on her left temple. The blow blackened the room, fuzzed its edges. She fought against the dizziness.

Vince threw her to the floor. “Worthless piece of trash.”

She pled with her eyes. “If you just leave me alone . . . I . . . I promise I’ll never tell a soul what you did. Just let me go. Why won’t you let me go?”

He dragged her up by the jacket again and shoved her against the stall door. The metal latch bit into her back. She groaned.

“Oh, it’s too late, Christy. I’ve given you more than enough chances.”

“Please. . .”

He backhanded her across the face. Pain shot through her nose. She crumpled to her knees, hands flying to the wound. Warm blood dripped into her fingers.

"I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re certainly nothing to look at.”

She peered up at the caricature of his once handsome face. How could she ever have loved this man?

Vince pulled a wad of rope out of his jacket pocket. “Not even worth the air you breath.”

That’s when the truth seized her. He’d played with her. Now he would kill her, and every ounce of survival instinct she had kicked in. She searched for a weapon. Bale of straw. Horse comb. Bottle of saddle soap. Shovel. She locked onto that. It leaned against the wall by the door. Could she crawl fast enough?

Vince kicked her in the thigh. “Get up.”

Christy struggled to rise in a slow, defeated way, but the second she gathered her feet underneath herself, she lunged for the door, and the shovel. Grasping the handle with both hands, she willed her eyes to focus on Vince, and swung it at his head.The back of the shovel smacked Vince with a revolting thud. He gasped and staggered sideways, momentarily stunned. The rope slipped from his hands.

Christy froze, shocked she’d actually wounded him. What was she doing? She had to get of here! Move!

Christy ran out of the barn, blood dripping and her head spinning. Into the yard, past the pickups. The house! Get to the house! Lock the door. Maybe she could grab a gun before Vince could break in.

And then she spotted the most beautiful creature in the entire world, Spirit, a snowy apparition posed in the middle of the yard, waiting for her. For a split second she wavered. Should she race for the house or gamble on mounting the gelding in her woozy state?

Vince forced her choice. He burst from the barn doorway, his eyes ablaze. She could not reach the house.

Adrenaline propelled her to Spirit, and she frantically gathered the reins, struggling to get her foot in the stirrup.

She threw a look backward. Vince streaked toward her.

Clutching Spirit’s mane, she summoned all her strength, and launched herself upon his back.
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Did I miss anything? Do you agree with what I did? Comment away.

As for next week—you think we’ve worked hard so far? We’ve only just begun. On Monday we tackle tightness of writing and sentence rhythm. These are two concepts I can’t separate in editing, because one directly affects the other. It’ll be a slow edit, with thorough explanation of the concepts first. I promise you—if you learn these two concepts well, it will utterly change your writing. So come back Monday with your seatbelt on.

Happy weekend, BGs.

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Read Part 7

Editing, Day 4--Action/Reaction Sequence

Greetings, BGs. First a little housekeeping. Ron had a great idea when he set up a discussion thread for this blog within the ACFW forums. Numerous BGs who usually leave comments here skipped over to that forum after reading yesterday’s post. That reminded me that I’ve been meaning for some time to create a discussion board right here, as part of the blog. I now have my assistant working on this, so it should be up in a few days. That way all BGs will have an easy forum for interactive discussion, whether a member of ACFW or not. Ron, thanks for your nudge on this.

Second, over on Mick Silva’s blog, Your Writer’s Group, is part 1 of an interview he did with me about Christian fiction. I was responding to general negative comments about CBA fiction and was very happy to be given some “air time” on the subject. This evening, part 2 of that interview will be posted. View it at: http://mywritersgroup.typepad.com/

My bottom line for all Christian novelists, whether we’re writing for the CBA or ABA, and no matter the genre—let’s support and encourage each other, understanding that God has placed us on different paths, but all for the common glory of His kingdom.

Back to our edit. Jason had two good questions from yesterday. First, can you overdo highly active verbs to the point they sound corny? Sure, that's possible. But the verbs really become the "right" verbs when all character motivation and emotion is in place to justify them. These issues have yet to come in our edit, so for now, some of the verbs may seem over the top. Second, Jason said some of the sentences seem wordy. Agreed. Wordiness is an issue we'll tackle when we look at sentence rhythm. That will be a major edit. Remember, we're only doing one thing at a time so I can fully explain each technique. We'll see it all come together in the end.

Today we look at action/reaction sequences—an important concept in high action scenes. If you’ve read Dwight Swain, you may have heard his term “MRU”—for motivation/reaction unit. I don’t call it that, but the concept is the same. (1) Something happens to POV character, and (2) character reacts. The reaction may be a physical feeling, a thought, or an action. Of course, action/reaction sequences also apply to non-POV characters, but in that case the reaction has to be in the form of an outward action hat shows us what that person felt or thought.

This concept sounds easy enough, but it’s hard to remember when we’re writing action scenes because lots of stuff is happening very fast. We must immerse ourselves in the heads of the characters to understand what they’re feeling/saying/doing as a result of each split-second action. These reactions have a logical order (even in the midst of a perhaps totally illogical fight).

Here’s the current first paragraph of our AS (as edited up to this point):

In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

The action/reactions here work in logical order. (1) Vince spins Christy around. This action causes Christy’s (2) Shoulder to ram the horse. Which causes horse to (3) React in fear and jump away. Which causes (4) Reins to be torn from Christy’s hands.

All of this occurs in a second or two. There’s no time for thought on Christy’s part. The action is bam, bam, bam.

Now here’s current paragraph two:

Vince’s fist landed on her cheekbone, and she spied the horse bolting out the door before pain shot through her head and she stumbled.

The action/reaction sequence doesn’t proceed in a logical order. Here’s the proper order: (1) Vince hits her on cheek, which leads to (2) Pain!, which causes her to (3) Stumble.

The problem arises because at the same time Christy is being hit, the horse is bolting away. We need to take that out of the hit/pain/stumble sequence. We can either have the horse bolt before or after this sequence. If we put it before, the bolting becomes the final reaction of the previous sequence. If we put it after, the bolting becomes the already fearful horse’s reaction to the hit/pain/stumble sequence.

How about putting it after, in its own paragraph, like this:

Vince’s fist landed on her cheekbone. Pain shot through her head. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

These actions/reactions make more logical sense. There’s a reason I’ve placed the bolting after instead of before. We’ll get to that in a minute.

To recap—one thing to watch for in action/reaction is the logical sequence of events.

Second thing to watch for can be harder to spot—a gap in action/reaction.

Vince’s fist landed on her cheekbone. Pain shot through her head. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

Put yourself in the midst of this fight. Think it through. Fist hits cheekbone, which leads to pain. That’s true. Then Christy could stumble. But before we get into Christy’s whole body reacting with a stumble, what happens to Christy’s head when fist meets cheek? Newton’s Third Law—For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Fist meets cheek, head jerks back under force of the blow. At the same time head jerks, pain shoots.

I suggest filling this gap in the reaction. And while we’re at it, I missed fixing the verb “landed” in our verb choice edit. It’s a weak verb. Also the verb “shot” could be even stronger. How about:

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head jerked sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

Better, I think. We’ll leave that for today. Here’s the next sequence:

“Spirit!”

Vince hurtled himself upon her. He grabbed a fistful of her jacket and yanked her to her feet. “It’s time you learned something, Darling.” He stuck his face in hers, his stale cigar breath assaulting her. “I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

There’s a couple things wrong with this. First, I don’t think in the midst of being hit and stumbling, that Christy is going to call for Spirit when the horse bolts. Her attention is on Vince. I’d take out that one-word paragraph. This is why I put Spirit’s bolting at the end of the first sequence, because it now serves as the short paragraph beat that’s needed between Vince’s first and second actions. (More on this concept another day.)

Second problem—another gap in sequence. Last we saw of Christy, she was stumbling. A stumble isn’t necessarily a fall. But Vince is now hurtling himself upon her and yanking her to her feet. So either we need to show her falling to the ground, or we can show Vince grabbing her jacket, which keeps her falling, and yanking her close to his face. In either case, I also don’t think we need the first sentence: Vince hurtled himself upon her. It doesn’t really work. He can’t be literally upon her, and also grabbing her jacket.

I suggest that Christy stumbles but stays on her feet.

Next we see Vince say one sentence. Then yank Christy close to his face, then say another sentence. This is okay, but it feels more logical to me for him to yank her close, then say both sentences.

Suggested edit with all these action/reaction changes:

Vince grabbed a fistful of her jacket and stuck his face in hers. His stale cigar breath assaulted her. “It’s time you learned something, Darling. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

The next paragraph illustrates a third kind of action/reaction problem—the impossible mix of two actions at once.

She squeezed her eyes shut, gasping. If she resisted, he’d make it worse. “Vince, please, don’t.”

If a person is gasping, she’s not talking. She’s merely sucking in air. I’d delete the word:

She squeezed her eyes shut. If she resisted, he’d make it worse. “Vince, please, don’t.”

Enough for today. Here’s the sequence as edited so far:

In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

Vince’s fist crunched into her cheekbone. Her head jerked sideways, pain exploding through her face. Christy stumbled.

Spirit bolted out the door.

Vince grabbed a fistful of her jacket and stuck his face in hers. His stale cigar breath assaulted her. “It’s time you learned something, Darling. I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. If she resisted, he’d make it worse. “Vince, please, don’t.”

Comments? Do you see action/reaction problems elsewhere in the scene?

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Read Part 6

Editing, Day 3--Verb Choice

BGs, some good comments from yesterday. Thank you. Ron, waytago for starting the thread on the ACFW forum—hope it weaves well for you all. :)

We’re going to jump right in with replacing the weak verbs pointed out yesterday with stronger ones. Two things to note:

(1) The verbs I’m choosing are not the only good choices, of course. But they should give you an idea of how using punchier verbs helps the scene’s action.

(2) There are quite a few remaining issues with this scene, but as much as possible right now I will only replace the verbs and leave everything else as is. (Except for the SA changes, which we’ve kept.) In this way, with each technique we tackle, you will be able to see how that technique alone further enhances the scene. This step by step, one-technique-at-a-time approach is unlike edits you’ll see anywhere else, which tend to cover all sorts of issues at once.

Having said this, sometimes I’ve had to change the paragraph a bit in order to use a better verb. Other times, I left the original verb alone for now.

Okay, here goes. New verbs are in red, with original (red) verbs put in parentheses.

In an instant, he spun her whole body around, and her shoulder pummeled into Spirit. The horse panicked and jumped away, ripping the reins out of her hand.

Vince’s fist landed on her cheekbone, and she spied (was vaguely aware of) the horse bolting out the door before pain shot through her head and she stumbled. (she felt the pain and stumbled.)

“Spirit!”

Vince hurtled himself (was) upon her. He grabbed a fistful of her jacket and yanked her to her feet. “It’s time you learned something, Darling.” He stuck his face in hers, his stale cigar breath assaulting her. “I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

She squeezed her eyes shut (closed her eyes), gasping. If she resisted, he’d make it worse. “Vince, please, don’t.”

“You pitiful excuse for a woman.” He hit her again, a swift bash on her left temple. The blow blackened the room, fuzzed its edges. She fought against the dizziness. (made the room turn black around the edges. But she didn’t lose consciousness.)

Vince threw her (let her crumple) to the floor. “Worthless piece of trash.”

She plead with her eyes (tried to look up at him). “If you just leave me alone . . . I . . . I promise I’ll never tell a soul what you did. Just let me go. Why won’t you let me go?”

He dragged (picked) her up by the jacket again and shoved her against a stall door. She groaned as pain shot through her back. He’d pushed her against the metal latch.

“Oh, it’s too late, Christy. I’ve given you more than enough chances.”

“Please. . .”

He backhanded her across the face. She crumpled (fell) to her knees, clutching her nose as warm blood dripped into her fingers.

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re certainly nothing to look at.”

She peered (glanced) up at the caricature of his once handsome face. How could she ever have loved this man?

Vince pulled a wad of rope out of his jacket pocket. “Not even worth the air you breath.”

That’s when the truth seized her. He’d played with her. Now he would kill her (she realized the awful truth. He wasn’t just doing this to frighten her. He intended to kill her), and every ounce of survival instinct she had kicked in. She searched for a weapon. Bale of straw. Horse comb. Bottle of saddle soap. Shovel. She locked onto that. It leaned against the wall by the door. Could she crawl fast enough?

Vince kicked her in the thigh. “Get up.”

Christy struggled (started) to rise in a slow, defeated way, but the second she gathered (got) her feet underneath herself, she lunged for the door, and the shovel. Grasping it with both hands, she willed her eyes to focus on Vince, and hurled it at his head.

The shovel smacked Vince (met its mark) with a revolting thud. Vince’s hands flew to his face, and he moaned as he sagged to the floor. She froze, shocked she’d actually wounded him. What was she doing? She had to get of here! Move!

Christy ran. Into the yard, past the pickups. The house! Get to the house! Lock the door. Maybe she could grab a gun (could figure out how to use one of those guns) before Vince could break in.

And then she spotted (saw) the most beautiful creature in the entire world, Spirit, a snowy apparition posed (standing) in the middle of the yard, waiting for her. For a split second she wavered (hesitated). Should she race for the house or gamble on mounting (try to mount) the gelding in her woozy state (when she could barely see straight)?

Vince forced her choice (decided for her). He burst from (appeared in) the barn doorway still clutching (holding) his head, his eyes ablaze. She could not reach (wouldn’t make) the house.

Adrenaline propelled her to Spirit, and she frantically gathered the reins, struggling to get her foot in the stirrup.

She threw a look backward (Glance behind). Vince streaked (was running) toward her.

Clutching Spirit’s mane, she summoned all her strength, and launched herself upon his back. (pulled herself up, and made it!)

I admit this edit was not easy to do, because there are so many other things I’m itching to change. You may see things, too. In fact, now that the verbs are stronger, other weak points of the scene may leap out at you when they didn’t before. But let’s allow these verb changes to suffice for now. You can see how these changes alone help you visualize the scene better.

Next up—action/reaction sequence.

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Read Part 5