You can usually tell when someone really loves to write.
The writing seems animated, sparkling, sharp. When I volunteer at my daughter’s elementary school, there are some stories that even really young children have written that just pop off the page.
But frequently I’ll read passages in books that seem really flat to me. There’s no passion at all in it…just a straight narrative.
Sometimes if we overthink what we’re writing, we can mess ourselves up, too. It can also be a sign of over-vigorous editing.
Infusing Life in Your Writing:
Consider your voice. Is the delivery flat? How you tell the story is uniquely yours…but you need to discover that voice.
Get your characters moving. Are your characters spending too much time sitting at diners and talking? Maybe it’s time to kick your characters in the rear and get them to move around a little. They don’t have to be jogging or anything—they could be looking for something they misplaced and be absentmindedly answering the protagonist’s questions. They could be washing their car. Change the scenery, use some verbs. Give them some action to respond to or have them instigate action.
Cut out the dead wood. Is there a scene that’s really pedantic? Is it necessary? Pinpoint the information that the scene is there to convey. If it doesn’t advance the plot, develop conflict, or assist characterization, then why is it there? Cut it out. If it does advance the plot, see if there’s a way to rewrite the scene to give it more feeling.
Create settings that pop. Make your setting pop by using vivid words and imagery.
Change the sentence structure. Are you stuck in a subject-predicate pattern? Try switching the arrangement of your sentences a little. Start a sentence with a verb, prepositional phrase, or adverb.
Consider your choice of words. Are you writing in an accessible way? What kind of an impression is our vocabulary or style giving the reader? The worst thing to do is sound pedantic or as if we’re talking down to our reader. Plus, it’s not drawing the reader in. And, usually? It reads very woodenly to me.
Use more dialogue. A conversation between characters that moves the plot forward or provides some character development is a great way to liven up a wooden scene.
Use both long sentences and short sentences. Mixing up the sentence length lends the text a different rhythm and pace.
Show, don’t tell. Instead of telling how a character feels about something, show the emotion through the character’s actions. There are times where telling is better than showing (action sequences, for example), but for the most part, it’s more interesting for the reader if they can draw their own conclusions instead of being spoon-fed information.
Consider the project itself. Have you lost interest in it? If you’re writing woodenly day after day, it could be symptomatic of a problem on your end. Have you fallen in love with an idea for a different novel? Have you written yourself into a hole? Assess what’s changed.
Has your WIP ever sounded flat? What did you do to fix it?
Brilliant advice, it’s so hard to sustain that sparkle over the course of a novel. I’ll definitely try these when my story begins to sag.
That’s some very good advice. There’s nothing worse than critiquing someone else’s work and finding wooden writing. It’s so tricky to diagnose and really explain why it’s lacking that sparkle.
And you’re so right about over-editing causing woodenness. I know I’ve done THAT before to myself.
Elizabeth – Those are such good pieces of advice. Wooden writing can drag a book down and even a few passages of it are sometimes enough to get a book right into the DNF pile. I think the pieces of advice that I use the most often are to look at the scene as a whole first – does it need to be there? Then, if the scene does need to be there but it’s wooden, I look at whether it could be told another, more creative way (e.g. could another character make an entrance and change the dynamics?). I’m also a big one for looking to sentence structure as the culprit.
Elizabeth, I think we’d all be better if we cut out the deadwood in our lives as well as in our writing. :)
Great post. I learned a lot.
Teresa
Excellent advice, Elizabeth! I’m sure over-editing has the cause of my wooden passages, it can take the zing right off the page if we’re not mindful.
I think my ‘worst’ writing is when I’m trying to write — comes out all ‘writerly’ and isn’t my voice. All your suggestions help pinpoint things to look for so we can fix it. But I think there’s an organic quality that can’t really be analyzed, and you have to trust your gut.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
Shannon–It can be tough to determine the root problem of flat writing. Easier to know the cause of it–I’ve definitely over-edited before!
Christine–Hope they’ll help!
Margot–Sometimes I’ve noticed a structural problem with my dialogue, too…I’ll accidentally get into a particular pattern. So I’ll have too many Jim said, ” or too many ,” said Jim. If I vary the tags from beginning to end, then it reads better.
Teresa–Thanks! And…you’re so right!
Another great post.
I especially like the idea about changing the sentence structure.
Thanks for sharing :)
My writing is most often flat when I type directly to the computer–scenes that are meant to pack emotion, I HAVE to write by hand. you’ve got some great suggestions here, though–I also can be afraid to skip time, and the in between can be flat and just needs to be dumped…
Thanks so much for the list! It is so helpful to have suggestions for recovery spelled out in simple concise form!
Working on the vivid part. And think I placed more action in my second book than the first.
I find that the first draft of my non-fiction is very wooden. (It’s like writing an essay paper – how fun is that anyway?) I’ve learned not to worry about it and just get the facts and the gist of the book down on paper. Then during edits I infuse some personality into the words.
Thanks, everybody! Hope the post helped. :)
Great tips! I often come across places in my writing that feel wooden, and I find it’s often that I’m not as deeply involved in that scene (as you say, we can sometimes fall out of love with a piece, or we’re just not finding the right way to tell it yet).
It always helps me to step back awhile, give it a break, and then I can see more clearly whether it is sentence structure or telling vs showing (which can be corrected as your tips show!) or whether i’ve truly lost its heart.
Thanks!
I can use all these tips!