by Aaron Sikes, @SikesAaron
Many thanks to Elizabeth for hosting me today. My noir urban fantasy, Gods of Chicago, is currently on tour. Since I’m also an editor, Elizabeth asked me to share some tips for self-editing. If all you’ve heard is the (mistaken) advice that good writers never self-edit, then this post should help dispel the misconception (I hope it does at any rate). If, on the other hand, you’re well steeped in the self-editing tradition, then I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can share some new ideas. Please add your suggestions in the comments, too!
Basics of style
The first editor I worked with gave me a valuable lesson in tightening my prose, beginning with the elimination of the verb to be from my MS. This, like all rules regarding exclusion, should not be viewed as a hard and fast proscription. However, the ‘be’ verb works best when it is limited to those instances where no other verb fits the bill. If you can use another verb in place of the ‘be’ verb, your prose will improve and your readers will thank you.
‘Be’ is stative, not descriptive; compelling prose relies upon description to elicit responses and engagement from the reader. If you’ve been accused of telling rather than showing, the ‘be’ verb is probably the culprit.
1) Emma was transfixed. (telling, stative)
2) Emma’s mouth hung open and she stood frozen in place. (showing, illustrative)
Crutch phrases
We all have them. Those phrases that automatically populate our manuscripts, starting paragraphs during action sequences or opening new chapters, transitioning from one stage of a scene to the next. My guilty pleasure is using ‘as’ to indicate action. I see it happening in my head, so I end up writing it as though it were taking place at that very moment.
1. As Brand stepped through the doorway, he felt eyes on him and heard the click of a hammer being pulled back. He dropped to the floor and the bullet hit the doorjamb just above his head.
The first problem with this phrasing (for me anyway) is that I use it far too often. But from an editor’s standpoint, the critical problem is one of clarity and immersion in the story. The reader is being asked to focus on too many details in that first sentence. That means their eyes will likely pass right over it, not really absorbing the action. Sometimes we want the reader to barrel along through a scene, and that’s fine. But it takes a different kind of phrasing to create the tension and suspense of hearing your own death ratcheting back one click at a time.
2) Brand stepped through the doorway and let his foot hang above the floor. He felt eyes on him from somewhere in the darkened room. When he heard the click of a hammer being pulled back, Brand dropped to the floor. The bullet hit the doorjamb just above his head.
Redundancies and how to avoid repeating yourself or saying the same thing twice
Let me get my tongue out of my cheek here.
When it comes to redundancy, I can’t point to specific words or phrases that you’ll want to watch out for. But I can suggest you keep a notepad handy. Get in the habit of writing down any words you notice appearing more than once in your MS. For me, this amounted to the following list:
stumble/d, second later/moment later, huddle/d, hunker/ed, tears, crying, cried, scream/s/ed
I had my characters stumbling, huddling, hunkering, crying, and screaming ad nauseum. It wasn’t until I spotted ‘stumble’ twice in the same scene that I caught on and combed through for redundant verbs (you’ll notice that nearly all my offenses were, um, verbal). Like crutch phrases, we all have crutch verbs. Jot them down and do a full search for each one as part of your self-editing. Your prose will improve and grow tighter.
Related to redundancy is a common error we all make: duplicated words. You’ve seen them in published books and fear that you’ve left them in your MS waiting to jump out on unsuspecting readers. Instances of the the, or that that. For some reason, the and that are frequently doubled. It may be the result of a stop-start moment in our writing. With that, we may have two sentences running through our head at once, since we’re using a relative pronoun. Whatever the cause, save yourself the embarrassment and do a full search for the the and that that.
One other note on addressing redundancies. Use Scrivener or another program designed for authors. The search feature in Scrivener, for my money, makes handling revisions and self-editing almost enjoyable. Instead of endlessly clicking the “Find Next” button, you simply enter the term in the search window and get to see a list of chapters or scenes in which the searched for term appears. This becomes a nice little game of crossing things off a list as you tidy up each scene.
Aural interference
Watch out for common misspellings (teh, thta) and common confusions (form/from and the addition of a plural ’s’ before the verb ‘is’). These happen when our minds are working faster than our fingers. We hear (in our minds) the ultimate ’t’ in that, and our fingers type that letter before the preceding vowel. We mean to type from, but end up typing form instead, or vice versa. We’re going to use the ‘be’ verb (because no other verb works better in this particular instance) and we hear that ultimate voiced sibilant as we’re typing the preceding word, so that word ends up pluralized, or just has a wayward ’s’ tacked on. Do a search of your MS fors ‘is’ and make sure you haven’t fallen prey to this insidious from of error.
I hope you found my suggestions helpful. Please do add your best practices in the comments! What have you noticed as a common error that you were able to clean up during self-editing?
Aaron Sikes (writing as AJ Sikes) is a writer of weird noir fiction and a freelance editor serving the community of independent authors. His stories have been published by Xchyler Publishing, KnightWatch Press, and Fox Spirit Books. Follow him @SikesAaron and sign up for the Gods of Chicago newsletter to get the latest updates on Mitchell Brand’s adventures and story world extras. If you need editing assistance with your manuscript, please stop by ajsikes.com.
Gods of Chicago is available now as a Kindle ebook on Amazon and Amazon UK.
Aaron, thanks for the helpful tips! I’m guilty of ALL of these issues. Especially crutch words. I have a loooong list that I refer to in the editing stage.
Glad you found it helpful, Julie :) Sounds like you’re already up to speed on catching crutch words. I just found a new one of mine the other day!
Thanks so much for guest posting today, Aaron!
Helpful hints, for sure. Knowing our crutch words is so important to prevent echoing. I tend to go for “just” and “look” a lot. And nice tip about looking for “to be” verbs to see if there’s any room for improved word choice there.
Thanks again for having me, Elizabeth!
Ah, the echo of “just”. Another one that I find peppering my manuscripts.
Good tips.
I hate the form/from and others. I just about did the old hat/hate there.
I think if you really have some speed and accuracy you’ll make a lot of those mistakes. I get so used to seeing that red underline in Word that I often miss little things, like the “John sad” I had today.
Wow, is that a cave man talking? But how many will be pulled from the story before they puzzle out it was ‘John said’ that I meant?
Hi Greg,
Thanks for commenting and bringing up the missing “i” – such a storykiller, as you point out. It may not fit everyone’s writing process, but a good way to catch those is to always search for “said” and “sad” after writing dialogues.
Good luck with the WIP!
I misspell the and that in a similar fashion all the time. Can you develop dyslexia as you get older?
I’m no expert, but I did delve into the confluence of speech and typography in grad school. When e-mail became the communication norm, I started seeing multiple errors, and *gasp* made them myself (the horror!) I chalk it up to the medium not matching up with the mind.
Keyboards produce letters far faster than any old pen, pencil, or quill. But even with analog tools in hand, I still occasionally skip a letter in the middle of the word and write the next consonant in sequence. I spent some time looking at my own (admittedly anecdotal) data, and it feels like the brain is just going too fast for the tools to follow.
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting Aaron.
Aaron – Thanks for those pieces of advice – all useful. I think it’s really a matter of being open to seeing one’s writing from the reader’s point of view. Writing that draws the reader into what’s happening is writing that serves the story.
Margot,
Couldn’t agree more. How many times have I been upset when I stumble across an error in a book I’m reading? So frustrating, and not just because I’m thinking about my $14+shipping ;-) Not so much a problem these days with e-readers being the norm, but still…reading is an investment of time and emotional energy. As writers, we owe readers the best of our efforts.
A timely post as I’m wrapping up edits on my latest MS. Great to meet AJ and best wishes for Gods of Chicago.
Cheers, Stephen! Thanks, and good luck with the MS.
My characters are nodders. They also like to feel stuff. Working on both issues!
Alex, sounds like you’ve caught the culprits. For my money, that’s the hard part.
Super-helpful, and timely as I am editing a much-revised manuscript, and still see stuff like Aaron points out!
Thanks,
Gail
Gail, isn’t it always that way :) Gods of Chicago went through umpteen revisions, and my first readers STILL found a score of issues. Keep at it!
I found a program called Story Edit that will point out repeated words, phrases, adverbs, etc. It’s great for discovering those crutch words you weren’t aware you were using. Reading out loud, although I hate it, also helps find them. I had lots of “abouts” and “long moments” in my last manuscript.
Terry, great advice about reading aloud. That can help in so many ways – fixing clunky dialogue, overly long descriptions, etc. Hadn’t heard of Story Edit. That sounds like a great tool to have at hand.
Aaron–
I would add a related flag to look for: “there is,” “there are,” etc. This usage signals reliance on “to be” as well as the passive voice. Instances where the writer conceals the actor (“There were some nice trout caught in the river”), or in which the subject is acted upon rather than acting (“Some nice trout were caught in the river”) usually mean that the writer has lost focus, or is just getting lazy. Nouns and verbs are the heart of any sentence. “The ball was kicked.” No, someone should do the kicking. “It was determined that…” The only times this infamous usage should figure are those meant to show how politicians, public relations types and the like habitually mask who or what has made a controversial decision.
Yes, that was too long a sentence, but I made it anyway.
Barry, thanks so much for widening the net :) Indeed, putting “there” sentence initial is a great way to run afoul of the “be” verb. Love the advice to restrict this kind of phrasing to politicians and others whose job requires obfuscation. Great stuff. Thanks for commenting!
I have a tendency to have a different crutch word with each new manuscript.
Nicole, as do we all, I’m sure. Your comment belongs in the post itself :)
Hi Aaron. All of your points are great tips. Another thing I keep an eye out for in my manuscripts are clichés. I tend to overuse them, so I go back and give them a new twist. It’s easy for clichés to slip into my writing, and I don’t even notice them until I do a close edit.
Hi Suzanne,
Great advice! We should all keep a list of the most tried and true clichés from our genre and search for them as part of our self-editing. It’s a great exercise to get the mind working on new ideas, too. We have to reformulate what the cliché, so we get to think about a scene or moment of action in a new light.
Thanks Aaron! You be hitting the truth here, bro!
I especially appreciate your post because you show the problem and the fix. That’s very helpful. And it made me plan one more read-through of my latest :)
Usually, when I think I’m near the final draft, I do a replace for is, was, be, etc and highlight them. When I do my final-final read, I ask myself is there a better way? Sometimes there be.
Peace, Seeley
Hi Seeley,
Glad you found the post helpful! One thing that’s stuck with me from my army days…Sergeant Guadalupe’s Maxim: There is always a better way. :)
Well said! I only recently caught on to the “to be” verb thing, and now I see all the time in both my own writing and that of my friends. It’s so nice to finally know where a big part of my writing woes stemmed from.
Derek, glad to be of help. I had the same reaction when an editor put the “be” verb at the top of my revisions list. Eye-opening, to say the least. Thanks for reading :)
Aaah, these are great and I know I’m guilty of a few of them. I’m editing a novel at the moment so I’ll be sure to add these things to my own little check list of ‘stuff to check’ and go on from there.
:)
Thanks so much for sharing.
When I’m drafting I’m the Queen of Redundancies – they appear out of nowhere. I’ve learned to commit an entire round of edits to the Slash ‘n’ Burn :)
Hi Aaron
Handy stuff, thanks.
I used the ‘as’ at the beginning of sentences a lot as well. I’m working on getting rid of it since my editor told me off :)
Also with the stock words. My characters nod far too much! Once you do the search, do you dive into the thesaurus to find something new or change the sentence in which the word features?
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike,
Coming back late with a reply, sorry for the delay. My practice in replacing stock words most often involved deleting the offending line. It was surprising at first, but I read through each instance, and most of the time I could just take out the stock word/phrase and the scene would read much better. I’d already set up cues that put the image into my head. Sometimes I found it necessary to add some new material or insert more or better visual cues for the reader.
Great question!