Tag Archive for: edit:language

DIY Edit: 12 Voice Intrusions

Even though I’m an editor for hire, I firmly believe in self-editing. Each month I’m going to drop a tip for developing your ability to edit your own work or identify things to look for as you edit. Make sure to check out all the DIY Edit Tips to improve your self-editing.

 

12 Voice Intrusions

The fiction you consume influences what you write. Not just in terms of content, but in how you write and in the words you use to express your ideas. This is often a subconscious element of writing that appears during drafting, when another author’s syntax and diction might sneak into your draft. Don’t let that stop your forward progress—or turn you off reading!—accidental intrusions are normal for any author. The work of identifying those intrusions and correcting them comes in revision.

It’s important to be aware of what’s your voice and what’s someone else’s. Absorbing other authors’ craft is a great way to develop your own writing and allow it to evolve. But it’s important to absorb and internalize that craft so it becomes a natural part of your voice and not a glaring error. Revision is the time to smooth out those bumps, find those intrusions, and craft something that truly sounds like you.

  • Does the dappled, wind-swept meadow fit in among your descriptions or does it stand out? Do you have lots of long, flowing descriptions of the settings and characters, or have you been reading Tolkein?
  • Is that a ten-cent word one you’d normally use—and are there more of them—or is it there because you were reading David Foster Wallace?
  • Are short sentences really your thing, or have you been reading too much Hemingway?

Pay attention when you or your readers identify something that sounds out of place within the rest of the manuscript. While you want to have sentences and descriptions that sing, it’s important to maintain consistency in your voice. Word choice and syntax are the foundations of an author’s voice, so pay attention to both while you craft your writing and make sure that your story sounds like it came from you.

 

Hiatus! DIY Edit will be going on hiatus for a few months. Expect it back in early 2019.

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DIY Edit: 10 Read Aloud

Even though I’m an editor for hire, I firmly believe in self-editing. Each month I’m going to drop a tip for developing your ability to edit your own work or identify things to look for as you edit. Make sure to check out all the DIY Edit Tips to improve your self-editing.

 

10 Read Aloud

If you feel like grammar and syntax aren’t your strength, try reading your work out loud. Reading your work aloud is a great way to catch awkward phrases and rhythms, run-on sentences, and repeated or missing words.

Reading out loud engages a different center in your brain than when we read silently, and it’s easier to find repeated or missing words since you’ve moved from comprehension (which can rely on scanning and interpreting) to performing. The performance aspect is part of what can help you catch errors since you’re now trying to translate those written words into spoken words.

Run-on sentences can be easier to catch when spoken because you physically start running out of breath. If you find yourself taking an awkward gasp in the middle of a sentence, highlight it for further review. Sometimes it’s just a long sentence, which there’s nothing wrong with, but it could mean that you need to use the punctuation more effectively to help the reader navigate the sentence. Good punctuation helps group ideas and show how ideas are related in a sentence, thus showing a reader how to read the sentence. If you’re losing your breath on every sentence, evaluate if there are any you can shorten. A variety of sentence lengths engages the reader and makes your writing more exciting.

If you’re tripping over phrases as you read them aloud, that may be a sign that you should rework the syntax or review the diction. (Honestly, sometimes it means you wrote a tongue twister, so you don’t necessarily have to change everything that trips you up.) Some things don’t sound awkward until they’re read aloud, so taking a pass to read your manuscript—to an empty room or to a friend—can be a crucial step in cleaning it up.

 

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DIY Edit: 08 Crutch Phrases

Even though I’m an editor for hire, I firmly believe in self-editing. Each month I’m going to drop a tip for developing your ability to edit your own work or identify things to look for as you edit. Make sure to check out all the DIY Edit Tips to improve your self-editing.

 

08 Crutch Phrases

Crutch phrases are the default phrases we use for descriptions, to move the story along, or to get ourselves back into the work. Because they are our personal defaults, they can appear over and over and over in our work without us consciously realizing that we’re being repetitive. The phrases themselves may not be examples of poor writing, but used in repetition they drag down the writing and clog the narrative.

Crutch phrases are one of the most difficult things to pick out of your own work. A friend or editor might notice your tendency to use the construction “Joe managed to [verb]” or that people are always looking over their shoulders to make observations, but since your crutch phrases are your go-to phrases, they are practically invisible to the author—until they’re pointed out. So how can you identify crutch phrases without getting a secondary reader?

A few of the strategies I use for identifying my own crutch phrases I’ve already addressed in DIY Edit. Anything related to creating distance is sure to help with crutch phrases because those strategies help you come back to the work with fresh eyes. You also might consider reading slowly and using a highlighter to mark the manuscript for phrases you think are familiar. One of the most effective strategies for identifying crutch phrases requires a little technology.

Free apps like Text Analyser and the Phrase Frequency Counter can analyze a story to find repeated phrases. In my personal search I discovered that an app like this was a good starting point. The app would identify that looking over shoulders was an overused gesture in my novel, and then, by searching for “shoulder” throughout the document, I could start finding all the permutations of the phrase, including hes, shes, and specific characters performing the action. It took a little organization, pattern analysis, and then creativity to assess whether or not to leave one of these crutch phrases or revise it, but overall this search helped to elevate my prose and the whole exercise made me more aware of my habits as a writer. Being aware of your crutch phrases is the best way to avoid them, or at least find them in the future.

 

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