Hope you’ll join me in welcoming Anne R. Allen to the blog today. Anne’s blog is a great resource for writers…check it out. This week she has a guest post from Lawrence Block.
Finding a beta reader or critique group is essential to any writer’s development. We can’t write in a vacuum. Nobody ever learned to be a good writer holed up in an attic with no one to review his work but the cat. (Cats can be so cruel.)
But it’s good to be aware that not all the advice you’ll hear will be useful. As Victoria Strauss said in her must-read Writer Beware blog “never forget that people who know nothing are as eager to opine as people who know something.”
Even worse than know-nothings are the know-somethings who turn every bit of advice they’ve ever heard into a “rule” as ironclad and immutable as an algebraic formula. Follow their advice and your book will read like an algebraic formula, too.
Here are a few critique “rules” I find more annoying than useful.
1) Eliminate all clichés
Unless your characters are wildly inventive poets, space aliens, or children fostered by wolves, their dialogue and thoughts will include familiar expressions. Don’t rob your Scarlett O’Hara of her “fiddle dee-dees” or deprive your Bogart of “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
2) More! Make it vivid!
Would we really improve Casablanca with “a hill of Moroccan garbanzos, yellow-pale and round, of the kind the English call chick-peas”?
3) Avoid repetition
Not necessarily. Beware what H.W. Fowler called “elegant variation”.
OK: “It was a good bull, a strong bull, a bull bred to fight to the death.”
NOT: “It was a good bull, a strong animal, a male creature of the bovine persuasion bred to do battle…”
4) Eradicate the verb “to be,” especially in the past tense: “was” is the enemy.
Yes, it’s generally wise to avoid the passive voice, which uses “was” in the past tense:
“The cat was laundered by me,” is passive and sounds lame.
“I laundered the cat,” is active and stronger.
But sometimes the passive voice makes the clearest statement: “The cat was abused.”
Real problems arise when amateurs confuse passive voice with the progressive tense, which also uses “to be” (with the present participle.)
“I was just sitting there when the cat owner punched me,” means something different from “I just sat there when the cat owner punched me.” Eliminating “was” changes meaning instead of “strengthening.”
5) Put your protagonist’s thoughts in italics. No. Don’t. Unless your editor specifically asks for this, avoid it. Italics are harder to read.
When you write in the third-person-limited viewpoint, it’s read like first person: no italics or “he thought/she thought” necessary.
“I walked away from the ‘In Crowd’. They were just a bunch of ill-bred alley cats,” can be changed to third person with just a switch of pronoun/noun: “Pufferball walked away from the ‘In Crowd’. They were just a bunch of ill-bred alley cats.” See? Just the same.
6) Characters must behave predictably
Don’t let anyone tell you a character “wouldn’t” behave in a certain way. Only the writer knows if this particular truck driver would read Proust; this bride would run off with the florist’s mother; or that Maine Coon cat would pee on your Christian Louboutins.
7) Describe characters’ physical appearance in detail.
When your English teacher told you to beef up that “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay with long, colorful descriptions of your new kitty, she was looking for a complete page, not preparing you for publication. Brevity is now and ever shall be the soul of wit. The only thing Jane Austen told us about Elizabeth Bennett’s appearance was that she had “fine eyes.” Let your reader’s imagination do the work.
8) Protagonists must be admirable
Saints are boring in fiction, unless they liberate France and get burned at the stake, and that’s been done.
9) If we don’t point out everything wrong, we’re not doing our job
Newbies make a lot of mistakes. (You did too, remember?) But if you list them all at once, they won’t hear what you’re saying.
They’ll hear a personal attack. When a person feels attacked, the brain shuts down.
A critiquer should tell you what’s right with a work as well as what’s wrong. When I was directing actors, I discovered the “sandwich” method is the most effective way to help someone improve: praise/criticism/praise.
All-praise-all-the time does nothing to help a writer’s work, of course, but neither does rigid thinking, power tripping, or misinformation.
My new mystery novel GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY was sparked by a particularly snarky and unhelpful critique workshop I witnessed at a writers conference many years ago.
GHOSTWRITERS is set at a Z-list writers’ conference in the wine-and-cattle country north of Santa Barbara CA. where a young writer appears to have committed suicide after a savage critique.
I couldn’t help the young man who was humiliated in that long-ago workshop, and I’m not sure I ever knew his name (I hope he’s a bestseller now!) But I wrote the novel partly for him—and every other fledgling writer who has been the victim of a nasty, misinformed critique.
Anne R. Allen is the author of five romantic-comedy/mysteries debuting this fall with two publishers, Popcorn Press and Mark Williams international Digital Publishing: FOOD OF LOVE, THE GATSBY GAME, GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, THE BEST REVENGE and SHERWOOD, LTD.
GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY is available in ebook from at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and will debut in January in paper. You can read more about Anne’s “chick lit noir” mysteries on Anne R. Allen’s Blog or her author page at Amazon.com.
{Note from Elizabeth–There’s been such a great response to this post that I’m foregoing my Friday post today to let Anne’s stand at top-post position until Sunday. Thanks to everyone who has come by, and please remember I’m giving away a 1000-word critique from The Bookshelf Muse. Just send an email to me at elizabethspanncraig (at)gmail (dot) com with “contest” in the subject to enter. Entries accepted through November 21. The randomly-chosen winner will be announced here November 22. Thanks, Angela and Becca!}
I love repetition. Not just in single phrases, either. I have just used “consume / consumed” at opposing moments in a story that show the protagonist at his highest then his lowest point. It’s not so obvious that it would stop you reading, but does add a kind of lilt.
I love this. I had some people they hated my character Will Tanner out of Cockeyed Cowboy and I questioned should I change him? I wrote him just like I wanted and after the book was out I had more people tell me they loved him and wanted more of him. I think as a writer we have to go with what feels right not what is right. Great tips. Thanks for posting them. T.D. Jones
I thought this was an especially useful column. In a way, it taught positives through negatives. Thank you.
First of all, Hello Anne. I love the title also–brilliant.
Secondly, I love your advice and will reread it.
Finally, your book sounds awesome and I need to get a copy.
Teresa
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting Anne.
Anne – Thanks for reminding us that good writing doesn’t necessarily follow “rules.” Good writing doesn’t necessarily follow “rules.” ;-). And I absolutely love that title!!
Okay, Ghostwriters In The Sky is an amazing title!
I’m having some trouble with number 6 actually. A couple of my beta readers don’t think a particular character would choose sides in a bad break-up.
Haha, well done for turning it around, that’s what writers do, right? Expectations, expectations.
Rich
Hi Elizabeth and Anne .. seems like some very sensible thoughts here for writers of all sorts .. loved the examples.
Your book ‘Ghostwriters in the Sky’ sounds so interesting .. especially as you’ve obviously felt for that poor chap for so long.
Thanks to you both .. cheers Hilary
Elizabeth; Thanks for hosting Anne – and Anne, thanks for these very sensible pieces of advice.
We write in a maze of words. Good advice. Thank you.
I disagree about #5, provisionally. Getting inside a character’s head in the middle of a block of dialog is a useful technique.
Great post, Anne. Thank you. And thanks to Elizabeth for having you. =o)
I’ll definitely be looking for your book this January.
The sad thing is that the people who take these rules as absolutes use them to criticize books in reviews.
Great advice!
Great advice!
It seems to me that many of the rigid rules out there work best for writers of hardboiled thrillers.
If we never broke them, playing with the clichés, scattering silly adjectives here and there or letting our sweet heroines kick the cat once in a while, I don´t think there would be any cosy mysteries – or any readers for them ;)
Paul–Don’t let them make you stereotype your characters. Unpredictable people are much more interesting to read about.
Roland–Repetition is such an important literary device. Sounds as if you’ve used it brilliantly.
Hilary–can you tell I’ve had a neighbor’s kitty visiting?
Tdj–“Right” can be a subjective term when it comes to writing rules.
Joe–Yes. I did mean this to be positive for for writers: trust your muse, not the rule-makers.
Teresa–Nice to see you here. I hope you have fun with Ghostwriters.
Margot–You’ve put it perfectly. Good writing isn’t always about following rules.
Jim–#5 doesn’t say you shouldn’t get into a character’s head. Not at all. Just don’t put the thoughts in italics. It’s a convention from pulp fiction that isn’t necessary. It’s harder to read. Some agents even ask that you remove all italics from a ms. before sending.
BE–Thanks. Most of my friends have to wait until January, too. Unless we all get Kindles from Santa.
Rich and Krista–Thanks!
Thanks so much for coming by today, Anne! And for providing us a different perspective on the writing advice that’s thrown our way.
I used to use ‘was’ way more than I should when I began writing, but in some instances, there’s no better way to say something.
I picked this up through Writer Beware on Facebook and can I say, it’s a great piece. I’ve been breaking these “rules” for years.
What a great, much-needed post. I liked the “More!” rule – I was lurking on a readers’ discussion group the other day and they were complaining about writers abusing the Thesaurus. “Strolling, wandering, doesn’t anybody just walk into a room anymore?” was one comment.
And I would suggest, with Number 6, that if your group is telling you that your character would never do X, one of two things is happening: 1) you haven’t written your character or the situation believably ENOUGH yet, or 2) your readers are bothered about something else and are using this as an excuse. I say that because I was in a group where a man was reading a scene about a girl that had just been tortured, had killed one of her attackers, and yet, instead of fleeing the house before the rest of them returned, stopped and made herself some soup. We all protested that she wouldn’t do that, and part of our reasoning had to be that we didn’t have a good grasp of her as a person. But a big part of the reasoning was that we were so aware of the danger of the situation, we couldn’t let her stay there.
Excellent “guidelines”.
And, BTW, I’m definitely looking up your book. The title and the premise intrigue me.
Anne rocks!
And so good to know I don’t have to go heavy on my character descriptions. Not that I would anyway…
Excellent writing advice, Anne! Thanks for this! I agree italics are harder to read, and sometimes it can seem like too much! Also, the over use of details drives me crazy, too. These are all good. Thanks, again! I repeated that. :D
This are all good points, even if some of them are pieces of advice I don’t see often. I’m linking this on my blog.
Was it intentional that you mentioned cats in both the beginning and in the “to-be” rule?
Elizabeth—Thanks so much for hosting me
Elsbeth—Thanks so much.
L. Diane—It’s ridiculous to advise writers to avoid the progressive tense. While one thing is happening, something else happens. Nothing passive about it. Except maybe the brains of the “advisors” who don’t know their grammar.
Chris—“Maze of words” Great phrase.
DW96—I’m very grateful to Victoria for Tweeting this.
Gayle—You’re right there. And it is something to be aware of: very often critiquers sense a problem, but they make the wrong suggestion. What you’ve described here is something the reader doesn’t believe, because the author hasn’t given the character a strong enough motivation. Maybe the kid is a soup addict? Knows the magic ring is hidden in a can of soup?
JA Pak—Aaack. I hate that. Ignorant reviewers are worse than ignorant critiquers. And they have so much power. (I’m going to be writing about that on my blog on Sunday.)
Alex—I think long character descriptions in SciFi would be especially heinous. Glad you don’t indulge :-)
Dorte—I’d never thought of that. Maybe these rules do come from hardboiled thrillers. Elmore Leonard is one of my heroes, but people may take his advice too much to heart.
LTM—Prologues written in italics are especially annoying. Especially if you don’t like prologues in the first place.
CO—Yesssssss. The feline theme is intentional. :-) Thanks for the linkage.
Love the title and the premise of the book! :)
I agree with your whole list! I avoid description (probably too much) because I hate reading too much of it!
Great advice (feel sorry for the laundered cat though!). I’ve enjoyed Anne’s blog for a while now, lots of helpful stuff there!
I love the advice on here! I thought another semi-crappy piece of advice was – just write what you know. Well, that’s a little impossible, right? I figure – research, talk to people, fantasize, and create, first. :)
Jan–Thanks! I know–poor kitty.
Nicole–“Write what you know” used to really irritate me when I was a teenager. I couldn’t think of anything more boring. I wanted to write about exactly what I didn’t know–witches and wizards and places full of magic and excitement.
OH! Sorry I came on this late. This is a GREAT list.
And I too have been inspired to make up stories based on bad behavior I’ve seen in workshops and classes. I usually export the social interaction to another venue than writing — but workshops are always quite the pot-boilers.
This is a real eye-opener for me. I’ve been squabbling over these very rules as I found them over the past couple of years here and there, since I began taking my writing seriously enough to write a novel.
Number five however, is a problem for me. My book deals with the supernatural and quite a few ‘thoughts’ are shared. It’s all written in the first person, so italics help me a lot. I don’t understand the explanation for an alternative either? But then I am a novice ;(
This will be a bookmarked article in any case, and serve as a superb reminder no doubt once I begin afresh, reading reviews from beta-readers and critiquing partners. And then surrender my work, like a baby, to the whole professional editing troop. Many thanks. Shah.X
I tried to leave this comment yesterday, but couldn’t get in until I had signed up. So – better late than never.
I suffered a lot when on Authonomy from comments by writers who a) had no idea about correct grammar themselves or b) had obviously been to one writing class and swallowed the advice whole and were applying it (I hope!) wholesale and incorrectly. If they had it right, then there must be a lot of bad teachers of Creative Writing out there. The two pieces of advice I thought most damaging were never to use an adverb, and never to use the word ‘had.’ The English language is one of the richest in use, and to rob it of one of its tools, i.e. abverbial description of an action, is simply crazy. As for ‘had,’ you have mentioned ‘was,’ Anne, so I needn’t repeat that ‘had’ is equally a necessary part of the verb ‘to have’, and to leave it out changes the meaning.
Then on the other side there were the pedants who told me I should never begin a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’…
Finally, there is more than one good writing style. People nowadays seem to have latched on to the Hemingway simplicity. But the more elaborate style of, e.g., Fitzgerald is equally attractive. Personally, I never aim to write like Hemingway, great man though he is.
Shah:
I also don’t fully agree about italics, and I think you’re talking about one of the cases where it is a probably necessary.
Using italics, or “he thought” to set off a thought is usually unnecessary — it’s usually clear without it.
If you’re using actual telepathy, though, then thoughts become like dialog and may need to be set off in some way.
It’s quite refreshing to hear all this said out loud. I totally agree with your points.
A good critique group shouldn’t be all about trashing someone’s works. There should be pros and cons!
Jemi—I’m like you—I hate description so much, I probably err on the other side.
Daring—Workshops of all sorts seem to attract bullies. Acting workshops can be even worse
Shah and Daring—On italics: you’re right. There are times when they do provide clarity. My editor put some in my novel Food of Love, and they did improve it. I gave a reading from the book on Saturday, saw those italics, and realized I should have qualified that statement. I’m talking about the convention of putting ALL the protag’s thoughts in italics when you’re writing in a third person limited POV, which is annoying and unnecessary.
Gerry—How kind of you to go through all that trouble to make a comment. I haven’t heard the admonition against “had” but I have heard the warnings against “just”, which is equally silly. When a word has so many uses and meanings, prohibiting it is ridiculous. (Or, one might say, it is not just :-) ) With the proliferation of online critiquing, more and more bad advice is getting spread around. We need to beware the “authority of ignorance.” Thanks for bringing more bad advice to our attention.
Dead—I have an ongoing argument with an otherwise perfectly nice woman who feels praise is dangerous, and it’s her duty to point out all the flaws in other people’s writing—even professionals who’ve been writing for years—“or they’ll never improve.” Most of these “flaws” concern her own personal taste, not a lack of quality. (She thinks all comic writing is inferior to deep drama.) I finally figured out what was going on when I realized she used to write, but stopped because she didn’t think she was good enough. I could see her “critiques” are really all about her own self-doubt, and her need to spread the misery. It’s best to limit your contact with people like that.
Very good advice.
As to the guy who took the beating in the critique group at the conference – where was the group leader? Someone should have stepped in and changed the course of the critique. That’s such a shame. I hope the guy read your post today.
LOL! Of the bovine persuasion. I loved your list and found it very helpful. Thank you for making this topic both relevant and entertaining.
Edge of Your Seat Romance
I love this post! I feel the same way about these so-called rules!
I especially love your was just sitting/just sat example. It’s much more vivid than my usual examples (she leaned/she was leaning when I came in the room, or he smiled/he was smiling).
Oh dear. I mean, not that it’s bad to be vivid ;)
This was great advice. I loved reading it, ate it, start to finish. Of course there was even the laugh out loud part – It was a good bull, a strong animal, a male creature of the bovine persuasion bred to do battle…”
*splutter, snort, giggle ;)
A long, long time ago, in a big town in Iowa I was told at the writer’s group (hosted by an author), to avoid–at all cost–the be verbs. And all it did was frustrate me trying to write around them. I’ve come a long way since then.
Thank you for posting this. I’ll have to check out the book. Love that title!
This column clarified so much for me. It really brought home to me that some of the sacred rules are not always true.
Helen–Unfortunately, the workshop leader was the one egging them on.
Raquel–Glad you found it useful
Jordan–Vivid is great, if we don’t use too many words to envivify. :-)
Elaine–Glad I could give you a laugh. We’ve got to keep our sense of humor in this business.
Lorelei–I have a feeling a lot of these bad rules may have originated in Iowa and other writers’ workshops and conferences.
Nancy–As I said to Lorelei, lot of these “rules” seem to come from writers’ conferences, where successful authors teach writing. But the truth is, a good writer isn’t necessarily a good teacher.
I loved this article. Thanks, Anne. Great advice!
Great advice that all newbies (and even some of us more experienced writers) should take to heart. I especially appreciate the “behaving predictably” issue–if all characters always behaved predictably in mystery books, there wouldn’t be any mystery, would there?
Thanks, Anne, for putting it out there.
Ursula, Pamela–I’m glad this spoke to you.
Great post and helpful. Thanks, Anne.
Jack–Thanks!
And many, many thanks to Elizabeth-both for hosting me and for leaving the post front and center for the whole weekend!
Glad I stumbled on to this post. Love what Anne has to say. Having gone to many acting workshops and having been bullied, I understand what it can do to the psyche. I felt vindicated through reading this post. And now, I’m curious about your book – Ghostwriters in the Sky. Great title!
“Unpredictable” is in the eye of the beholder anyway. Real people violate our stereotypes all the time.