A few days ago I sent the first chapters of my WIP to a friend to critique. She's a former commissioning editor so I was interested to get her thoughts. But now I have more to think about than I need and I'm worried that I don't know what to make of her advice.
She pointed out that there are certain words that novice writers use that act as red flags for editors or agents. You mark yourself out as a novice writer if these words appear in the forts few pages of your manuscript and the editor or agent may pop your word straight onto the 'Pass' pile if they spot them. And guess what, friends? That's right, there they were in the first pages of my WIP! I'm a novice and showing it to anyone who reads my writing.
Some of what she pointed out I saw immediately - that's one, by the way - and I knew it was something I needed to correct. She pointed out that I use the passive voice a lot. This I knew, I am a lover of passive voice but I know that it is frowned upon in modern writing so I do try really hard not to slip into it too often.
But she listed some words which she spotted that apparently mark me out as a novice. these include 'sigh', 'shrug' and 'nod'. Help! What so I do if these are exactly the word to describe what is happening in the story? I'll share an example, if I may. One of my favourite television programmes is Casualty. And my favourite character is Dr Dylan Keogh, a brilliant, intelligent, frustrating man. Now poor Dylan spends plenty of time being frustrated by the stupidity of others and what does he do when frustrated? That's right, he sighs. he lifts his shoulders, exhales loudly and sighs. I've checked out some synonyms for 'sigh' and they don't convey exactly what he does - pant, weep, groan, suspire, great words but not quite right. Dylan sighs and there's nothing for it but to use that word. So how can I as an aspiring writer avoid using 'sigh' if none of the other words fit as well? Another word that marks me out as a novice is 'shrug'. Again I have a dilemma. When my character lifts her shoulder sand then drops them she's shrugging, yes? Synonyms don't help me again - dismiss, disregard or twitch are suggested in the thesaurus. None of which describe the motion of shoulders and the implied meaning conveyed by the gesture. A final example is 'nod'. The thesaurus suggests bob or bow but they aren't exactly right either. She's nodding her head for goodness sake. I can use bow but that suggests deference and that's not my character's style; I can use bob but that's not quite the same as nodding, in my opinion.
So what am I to do? If I take her advice then I'll spend hours wrangling the wrong word and feel frustrated. But if I use words that mark me pout as a novice I may never get anyone to read what I'm writing! I've decided for the time being to carry on writing in my won style. I'll come back later and clear up some of the things where I think she's spotted something that needs correcting. And as for my novice word choices? I don't know. Maybe I'll wait until more than one person points it out, maybe I'll stick to my guns and use whichever words I please.
Any advice?
I watched a great YouTube video recently from a literary agent slating the word that! I went through the ms and cut over a hundred... it’s a minefield but so worth knowing before sending off to tons of agents. Best of luck xx
ReplyDeleteYou could end up driving yourself nuts if you had to cull every word that every agent or editor had a thing about! I guess I'll try to be more careful in my word selection but until I have someone who is actually interested in my ms in a professional sense I'll leave the word culling alone.
DeleteHmmmm, I'm a bit skeptical about this. If it was really the case that an agent would immediately reject something on the basis of certain 'red flag words', then surely there wouldn't be any recent fiction published featuring immediately, surely, shrug, sigh, etc (I'm pretty sure that's not the case, and if it was, they would quickly cease to be cliches). Use words carefully, yes, but if 'sigh' is the most precise word to use, then use it! It's a bit like the advice Renee heard about not using 'that'. But sometimes you need a that to make the sentence work!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Becky. I'm going to take what she said with a pinch of salt (to use a cliché!) and crack on. There was a useful piece of info I took from her comments and I will be looking at that when I come to edit but the 'novice words' thing doesn't sound right to me.
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