Our guest blogger today, just happens to be the winner of our contest, so congrats, Rick.

EVERYONE HAS THEIR One True Writing Tip, SO HERE’S MINE:

Ask five writers for the one thing that makes their writing better and you’ll get six different answers.  Long-winded, needlessly verbose, adverb-laden answers, all in a dramatic tone intended to make you believe that if you don’t do it exactly right then you may as well stick to writing the Nutritional Information labels on boxed food products, you hopeless derivative hack.

Ahem.  Anyway.

The popular answer seems to be to READ, READ, READ.  Sure, that’s true, but how many authors do you know that aren’t also obsessive readers?  To be honest, I can’t stand writers and don’t know that many of them, but each and every one of them reads.

So that’s not very helpful advice then, is it?  Instead, let me advocate something that I rarely see other writers do:

SPEAK.

Yep, I am telling you that you need to stand up from your desk or couch and read your work aloud.  Read to your cat, dog, kids, significant other, nearest neighbor, or patron deity.  Whatever.  It doesn’t matter — just speak.

Sorry, but I just lied — it’s not enough to just speak.  You need to PERFORM.  Yes, I’m talking about a dramatic production of your work.  You know how you’d want a professional reader to sound if your work got turned into an audiobook or stage play?  You need to recreate that performance.  I’m talking Dudley Do-Right versus Snidely Whiplash, arms waving, stomping around in your living room.

Why go through all of that?  You’re looking for a few things:

1. Listen for word transitions that trip you up.  If they trip you up while speaking, they’ll trip up your reader.
2. Listen for places where you have to try a few times to get the inflection and emotion quite right.  If you can’t do it in a single pass, neither can your reader.
3. Listen for places where you’re not sure which voice to make — which character is speaking.
4. Listen for dialogue that you would never actually find yourself saying, as that’s a sure sign of a terribad infodump.  “Because you’re my second son, with one older sister and two younger brothers, and red hair.”
5. Ditto for narration, inner monologue, etc.

Remember that, in a cognitive sense, reading is based upon the spoken word.  We learn to speak first, then figure out what all those squiggly lines mean after that.  If you work isn’t smooth and interesting to listen to, then it won’t be smooth and interesting to read.

But wait, there’s more!

I promise you that performing your work aloud will improve your characterization and voice.  Getting the characters out of your head and walking around the room will help you solidify the lines between them so that they don’t all sound the same.  It’ll also help when you’re blocked — by flailing around and getting into the passion of your characters, writing about them becomes easier.

Oh, and if you write Fantasy, I do expect you to wield a sword as you perform.  Anything less isn’t committing to your writing.

–
Rick Osborne

http://rickosborne.org/blog/

Rick’s Authonomy Profile

Bookmark This