CRAFT: What E. E. Knight Says and What I Replied

[shalanna]

Taking a break from this read-through revision (whew) to discuss another journaler and his list of revision pointers.

I think that this list of E. E. Knight's revision pointers is good, on the whole. I do have a couple of quibbles.

I'd like to address head-hopping and "The Joker."

Head-hopping has a specific definition--at least in romance circles. It means that you're in one character's POV--say, Jane's--and suddenly write, "John thought of how his dad had always built his own model airplanes, and nodded." This is a violation of POV, as Jane can't know what he is thinking unless she's psychic and you have set this up in advance and it runs through the story. You could say, "John nodded, and Jane wondered whether he was thinking of his own dad's hobby of building model airplanes," if it's important that we know this.

But the list addresses as well "too many switches per scene." I agree with this, as well. I think one swap per scene (defined by a scene break, which is "# # #") is enough.

I almost always write a novel from the intimate close-in psychic distance of one POV character, Our Hero. I like this best, and it's what I usually do.

For _Pundit_, I realized early on that I had to reveal Whit's true identity as soon as possible. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense. Readers would be bored and think there wasn't anything interesting going on underneath, and would miss all the fun. The only way to let readers know about it without letting Our Heroine and her co-workers know about it all was to be inside his POV around a third of the time, and in Kay's the rest. This also allowed me to build the romantic attraction/relationship from square one with his attraction to her being evident, as well as her attraction to him. That's done very often in romance and women's fiction. Romance novels are now set up to spend 50% of the time in the mind of each partner, typically.

So I don't head-hop inside scenes. And I try not to break a scene more than once--if we're at a bar, we have half in her POV and half in his, and then we go to the next venue before we "switch" again. This means that I have to know WHOSE scene this is, and who has the most to learn, lose, or gain. It's interesting to analyze this as you figure out how to get the information across to your readers so they'll be In The Know and your "other" characters won't be.

Nora Roberts and Evil Dan Brown head-hop, though, and it doesn't seem to have hurt 'em.

"The Joker." Well, this is actually not just a simple reminder to "find all GRIN or SMILE tags and replace most of them." It's a symptom of a far deeper problem. It's a problem with character business.

When I first realized that I didn't want to have lots of "he said" lines and that we could no longer use the shorthand of adverbial dialogue tags (which had been the standard for so many years--read older books to see), I started showing character business instead of having dialogue tags.

Instead of

"I don't believe you," he said, lighting a cigar.

it's

"I don't believe you." The match flared as he lit a cigar.

But then you have all this cinematic movement defined for the readers. I thought at first that I should do lots of this to avoid Talking Heads. That the more I showed the way I was seeing it unreel in my mind, the better readers would understand the scene.

But then Coneycat pointed out that she had a movie in her mind and it was playing, and this stuff was different from what she visualized. My characters were flailing, and she got distracted--it was a turnoff to be told they were grimacing and waving their arms or picking up coins or emptying ashtrays when that business had NOTHING TO DO with the point of the scene and wasn't setting anything up. Better to just have an untagged line of dialogue.

This was kind of a revelation or epiphany that built on the one about not putting in "saids." It's like the way you give a description and then let the reader fill in with memory or imagination, and they see characters their own way and participate/invest in the vivid, continuous dream.

So then when I revised (and even while I was writing, to some extent), I had to figure out which directions were GOOD and which were really excessive. It's a tough call sometimes, but other times it's brickbat-hitting obvious that the action doesn't even make sense. Your guy was already grinning. He's holding that hat again after he put it down? Did he have a reason to pick it up? Is it done for slapstick humor--and does that work? If you're just having him play with the hat for no reason other than avoiding a dialogue tag, it probably needs to be reconsidered.

So don't think that just by taking out "he smiled" and "she sighed" and making them into "he tapped his foot" and "she looked at her watch" that you've solved the bigger problem, if it's there. This is something we all work on for a while.
@ $ @
From the Snarchives of Miss Snark:

You know it's "safe deposit box" and so would a copy editor. If I write "safety deposit box" you KNOW what I mean, and so does any editor. Why are your panties in a wad?

[Because!] It shows you care about your work.
It's like brushing your teeth before a date,
and polishing your shoes before a job interview.

Now go read that passage I posted and tell me whether you like it. *grin*

Comments

[lexica510.livejournal.com]

While watching Inside Man, one of the things I noticed is that some characters, like the bank robbers and the police, referred to "safety deposit boxes", and some, like the head of the bank, referred to "safe deposit boxes". I thought that was a nice detail.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm glad one of my comments was helpful! (I hate feeling like I'm piling on, but I thought that one might be useful.) I also have th problem of pikcing which bit of business to keep and recycling the rest. ("Take what you need and leave the rest," as the line goes!) I'm going to have to do this with the Kowalski story. There's a point at which I've established Jordy's personality and I don't have to belabour it.

Also, from the list:

In taberna quando sumus: - it's often because we're too hidebound to think of anywhere else for the action to take place but a bar or inn. Tavern scenes aren't one of my bugbears, but my friend Howard who edits Black Gate says that he sees entirely too many from amateur fantasists. Liven things up by having people meet and talk business at sporting events, religious rites or festivals, public baths, market days, weddings, theatricals, readings of edicts, auctions. . .

Any story set in Atlantic Canada must have one scene set in a tavern, and at least one set in a kitchen. It's not a regional stereotype or lazy writing. It's where the Maritimers are. (Speaking of which, I should rewrite the scene in my old Texan lady's house so all the young men from the Halifax rick band follow her into the kitchen and have to be chased out. As Jordy reflects, it's where he hangs out with his grandmother...)

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Man, I CANNOT type this afternoon! I'm going home!

[eeknight.livejournal.com]

Good points!

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

I tend to favor mixing it up - if I know I have a tagging concern (who is speaking) then I tag.

If I have action that does forward the scene then I include dialogue in action. This is generally my first preference.

I never just make up staging to hide a tag.