Oh the conflict!

Helllloooooo, dear readers! We're back. Well, I (Erynn) am. Hope you had a lovely Christmas and a happy New Year. Between the two of us, we traveled 1,500 miles, battled morning sickness, laryngitis, and double pneumonia, probably ate two dozen cookies (if by two you realize I mean six), and packed and unpacked an entire house.
But we're back. And we're going to put our Decisions, Decisions series on hold until we're both back up and around and more unpacked.

So, today I'm going to drop a couple pointers on conflict. The first is simple.

HAVE IT. Every story needs conflict. In fact, every scene needs it. Even in picture books, the bunny wants the carrot in the angry farmer's field, or the child's doll has a broken arm. In every story, someone has to want something they can't have (or at least they think they can't). Give your characters obstacles. Be it an antagonist, their own personal/emotional issues, or nature itself. Heck, why not all three? Nothing is more boring than a conflict-less story. No one wants to read a book about a bunch of happy people that never argue and who never have anything bad happen to them. Snooooore.

The second pointer is  . . . MAKE IT WORSE. This is especially true for suspense writers, but a good tip for all writers. Make sure the problems you throw at your characters aren't all just silly and superficial. You see this sometimes in romance novels where you're thinking, "Oh come on! Just have a conversation, and this would all be over!" The romantic dithering.
At several points along the way, especially near the climax of your story, you should ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen to my character right now? Then make that happen. Then . . . do it again. Keep making it worse until it feels like there's no way out. Then find a way out.

Ronie Kendig is the queen of this. Her books are all, "Oh no, I'm surrounded by venomous snakes in a cave that's running out of oxygen. And I'm severely claustrophobic. Wait! I hear someone coming. I'm saved! No! It's the Taliban. I have to find a way to escape them. Maybe if I . . . AVALANCHE!!!" She never gives the reader a chance to breathe before the next crisis. And that's what you want.
When you lose conflict, you give the reader a chance to put your book down and walk away. Your goal should be to keep 'em up all night. And how do you do that . . . ?

CONFLICT. 

Now go forth and make it worse!

No she didn't!

Last week Bethany talked to you about avoiding cliché phrases and common idioms in your writing. Today, I want to talk about cliché gestures and descriptions. These are the mannerisms that every character has, the physical actions that crop up in every chapter. Another plug for The Emotion Thesaurus. Each emotion entry will give you fresh ways to express the emotion as well as clichés to avoid.

Have you ever read a book where it felt like all the characters did was sit around and smile at each other? He smiled. She smiled back. Everyone grinned until their cheeks hurt, and you, the reader, came away with a migraine. Overuse of smiling is one of the clichés I see in almost every manuscript. It even worms its way into my own during the first draft. 

But that’s why we have second drafts (and third and fourth and . . .). When you’re editing your manuscript, you can use the Find (and the reading highlight) feature of Word to determine how many times you use a particular word or phrase. If you’re a more visual person, or you just don’t know what words to look for, you can use a word cloud like Wordle to show you which words you use the most.

Here are a few more common clichés to look out for:

• The lip biter. God bless him/her. There seems to be (at least) one in every story. Branch out. There are more (read: better) ways to show a person being contemplative/nervous/shy/etc. (Can someone get that memo to Kristen Stewart?)  It's good to give your character a defining mannerism, but make sure it's original and unique to that character. 
  
• The head shake and/or the shrug. Sure, we all do these, but they're just WAY overdone in fiction. Limit yourself to one or less per chapter. And if your chapters are very short . . . way less. 
• The crier. We all know this person in real life. Heck, I am this person in real life. When someone cries ALL THE TIME, it’s easy to just dismiss their emotionalness (yeah, I made that one up). You want your characters’ tears to mean something. So, let them express hurt/anger/sadness in other ways as well so that when they do cry, the reader really feels their pain instead of rolling their eyes. Usually if the character is crying, the reader isn't, and you want the reader to be crying.
• The woman who gets “weak in the knees” after a kiss. I mean, really? REALLY? No she didn’t. That’s not a real thing.
• Neither is the “electrical jolt” of instant attraction. He touched my hand and I felt sparks. Ugh. Can we not? Please?

Okay, dear readers. Your turn. List the cliché gesture or description that weasels its way into your writing the most. OR . . . share one that drives you crazy when you're reading. 

Avoid Clichés Like the Plague: Words and Phrases...and Idioms

Greetings, writer pals! Two announcements today:

One: We have a winner. One of our delightful commenters has won a free five-page edit! And it's none other than...

Tom Threadgill!

Congrats, Tom! Contact Erynn at alittleredinc@gmail(dot)com to tell her about your work!

Announcement numero dos:

We're starting a new series today on avoiding all sorts of clichés (like the plague).  Today, we'll hit phrases and common idioms that lead to lazy writing. Next week, we'll slam cliché gestures and body language that creep into our characters' interactions. The big finale will knock out the top storytelling clichés.

Let's do this. You want to be a writer. You dream, you plot, you research, and you begin pouring your ideas on paper. Often, the first draft is more about story. You may have some wicked beautiful phrasing in there, there may be places your voice sings, but--odds are--not so many. In fact, it's fairly likely that, in order to keep the story going, you'll take some shortcuts. I know I do. How many of you are doing NaNoWriMo this month? It pays to turn off that Internal Editor and  just write while ideas are flowing.

As long as you turn your IE back on for the second lap. 

Let's look at a few things you can target to seek and destroy as you run back through.

First, lazy words.    Went. Looked. Turned. Gasped. Sighed. 

You can always do better than these. Ask yourself these questions (and avoid answering them by merely adding adverbs).

Went: 

• By what means? Air? Car? Boat? On foot? Crazy local taxi?
• How fast? Did they jet? Race? Speed? Slice? Stroll? Careen?
• If walking, with what purpose/attitude? Were they ambling? Strolling? Sneaking? Skulking?  

Looked: 

• Do you mean appeared or seemed? (He looked angry?) If so, show, don't tell. 
• Do you mean someone physically turned their head and eyed something? If yes, then use the following questions.
• How long did they look? Were they glancing? Observing? 
• How intensely did they look? Did they gaze? Eye? Peruse? Pore over?
• Why were they looking? Studying? Ogling? Lusting? Memorizing? 

Turned: 

• Were they twirling, like Meg Ryan and her mother in You've Got Mail? Because that's precious.
• Did he spin and face his enemy? Did he swing his head to meet her gaze? 
• Were they in a car? Were they veering? Cranking the wheel? Easing? Bearing right?
• Were we talking about lights or music? Switched on? Cranked up? Muted? Dialed back?

Gasped and sighed:

• All I can say about these is that they're overdone. Similar questions might help. Knowing why someone needs to inhale or exhale and what they're truly conveying in that moment is key. If you've got to use them, limit yourself SEVERELY. Once or twice per book? There are other, more unique things your characters can do to express shock, relief, fatigue, or frustration. Find 'em and use 'em. Next week's post will help. 

Second, phrases and idioms. These are so commonly used that they just roll off our tongues. They're the phrases that you can pull right out of the air or right off the top of your head. But we can get carried away using them, and we need to learn to think outside of the box. At the end of the day, as writers, the words you choose matter.

See what I did there? Doesn't that make you almost go ballistic? 

Often, taking something familiar and tweaking it to put it in the language of your character's hobbies, skill sets, likes, and personality will do the trick.

One of my heroines is a musician in a dangerous relationship. Rather than thinking of her boyfriend's mood swings changing like the weather, she thinks:  

In an single beat, there was discord where there'd been harmony.

I've got a baseball player who's had enough of his sister's excuses. In the middle of a serious moment, he wants the truth to register with her. But he doesn't say that. He thinks:

If I could get her out of this slump...

Whenever you see clichés in your prose, get yourself deep into the mind and motives of your characters. If you understand why or how the actions are playing out, chances are, Writer-friend, that you can come up with a much better word or phrase.  

After all, you're a logophile, right?

Now, in the comments, hit me with one of these: 1) a cliché or two that you see all the time (and hate), or 2) a line from a favorite book (or your original work!) where the character's voice has been well-wielded to avoid cliché.  

Thanks for swinging by!
 
                          And thanks to A Syn and ADoseofShipBoy for the images.

Going Deeper with Deep POV (& a free edit)

What's up, reader/writer types? 

Today, you've got a chance to win a free five-page edit! All you've got to do is comment below the post with two of your own examples. Examples of what you ask? Shallow and deep POV, of course.

Let's talk about deepening your point of view. This is one of the best ways to take your characters from cardboard to jump-off-the-page real. If you'll recall, my (and Gibbs's) Rule #1 is no head hopping. When you write a scene in just one POV, it's like you have tunnel vision. You see (hear, feel, smell, and taste) only what that character experiences. It's as though you've put one of those helmets with a camera attached on their head, so we see exactly what they see.

But that's just POV. If you want to go deep (and trust me, you do), there's so much more than the five senses. There are thoughts, feelings, emotions. Beyond just describing the setting and telling us what the character feels, you can show us. 

This is Rule #2. Show. Don't tell. A great indication that you're showing (and therefore in shallow POV) is when you're using variations of those five sense words: 

• Leo saw a baby fox streak across the road.
• I heard the tires screech as the car turned the corner.
• The chips tasted salty.
• She could smell fall in the air.
• The sweater felt like a warm hug.

Or the sneaky weasel . . .

• I thought he was lying.

Most of the time, it's easy to get rid of these. You can simply delete them. If we're in Leo's POV, and he tells us "the fox streaked across the road," we know he saw it.

If I say, "the tires screeched," guess what. I heard it.

You could even say "the chips were salty," although that's a little dull and tell-y. Better would be, "The salty chips stung my lips."

"The crisp smell of fall hung in the air."

"The sweater clung to me like a warm hug." 

"His shifty eyes told me he was lying."

The second part of this is emotion--the characters' feelings. Don't TELL me they're sad. SHOW me what it feels like to be sad, and PLEASE don't just show them crying. There are so many more original ways to show sadness. Throat burning, chest constricting, eyes stinging. Do they retreat to a special place where they can be alone? Eat their feelings? Call a friend? Bury themselves under the covers for three days?

A GREAT resource for this is The Emotion Thesaurus. You can look up any emotion, and the thesaurus will give you a bajillion examples of physical responses to that emotion. Seriously, if you don't own this, and you write fiction, please buy a copy now. We don't make recommendations like this lightly. Both of us own a copy.

What else? When you write, each POV character should have his or her own voice. The reader should be able to tell within the first paragraph, even the first sentence, exactly whose head they are in. We should be privy to the character's innermost thoughts and experience the story world exactly as they do. A man's thoughts and inner dialogue should not sound like a teenage girl's. Give your characters unique quirks.

Have you ever read a book and felt like the characters stepped out of the pages and sat down next to you to tell you their story? Deep POV creates characters the reader can identify with, laugh with, and cry with.

Don't settle for cardboard cut outs. Don't just skim the surface. Dig down deep, and give your characters life and breath.

Now it's your turn. Give me an example of shallow and deep POV in the comments below. And I'll choose one commenter at random and do a FREE FIVE PAGE EDIT. Be sure to leave your email address so I can contact you if you win. And feel free to share, please! Especially if you've got writing friends who could benefit from this win.)

Good luck, and go deep!

Get Your Grammar Fix(ed): Will the Real Passive Voice Please Stand Up?

Never write in the passive voice.

That little gem could be great advice. It could help you light a fire under your writing!

If you know what passive voice really is.

First, please allow me to explain what passive voice is NOT.

Many folks understand it to mean dull writing. You know, the kind of writing where everyone and everything just exist. So full of "to be" verbs that nothing is happening.

They were tired. 

He is flummoxed.

She was downtrodden. 

Bleh.

"Well, it's passive voice if you toss an "-ing" verb in there, isn't it?"

No, friends. It's not. It's just the progressive form of the verb. It's continuous action in whatever tense you chose.

They were trudging.

He is trying to solve the problem.

She was hanging her head.

Still...bleh.

Dull writing can be remedied by zapping spunk into your verbs. Show some moxie and write sentences that paint a picture. Create a vivid scene!

All four of them, backs bent low, shoulders curved, toes dragging tracks in the dirt, trudged into town. Had they been in a fight? Scabbed and dirty, not a single man made eye contact with the bystanders. Until she spoke.

Stymied, he erased the equation and scrawled in some new figures. The clock ticked. Anxiety made his spine buzz and his scalp itch. Shoving a hand into his hair, he chewed the inside of his cheek and tapped his pencil against the desk.

Her cheeks burned. His words sapped her strength and drained her of any desire to fight back. No way she could win a fight with him--not when cheating was as easy for him as breathing.

Showing versus telling is the game we're playing here. It has nothing to do with passive voice.

So what is passive voice? (I'm down to twenty seconds! Ack!)

Every verb has four attributes: person, number, voice, and mood. 

Voice can be either active or passive.

Active voice: the subject does the verbing.

Passive voice: the subject is verbed by some other noun.

Active: I struck the match.

Passive: The match was struck by me.

So, are there times when passive voice is necessary? Even useful?

Sure. Go back to the downtrodden girl. She's been victimized. There might be a scene where you want that theme to resonate. The text might read:

She'd been lied to by all of them. She was used up and broken. And now here she was, abandoned.

Of course, verbs in the passive voice do not cause people to cheer.

(They might even cause people to look for a bookmark.) Wield them wisely. Limit them.

True passive voice has its place, but it still tends to be dull.

Let me be honest. It was hard for me to type those sentences in the passive voice. I desperately wanted to revise it:

Every one of them had lied. They'd used her and left her broken and abandoned.

Do you see the difference?

Strike the match.

Be compelling. Show the actions being done by the subjects. And show the results.

Time's up. Do you understand the difference between passive voice and dull writing? Think you can avoid them both and drive your story forward? In the comments section, try to write a sentence in both the active and the passive voice.

Have fun!


Thanks for the images Artur84 and Idea Go at www.freedigitalphotos.net