UNCORRECTED PROOF 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing The Writer’s Toolbox Series 5 EDITORS TACKLE THE 12 FATAL FLAWS OF FICTION WRITING by C. S. Lakin, with Linda S. Clare, Christy Distler, Robin Patchen, and Rachel Starr Thomson Copyright©2015 by C. S. Lakin Cover designed by Ellie Searl, Publishista® All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Ubiquitous Press Morgan Hill, CA The Writer’s Toolbox Series The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction: Your Blueprint for Building a Strong Story The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction Workbook Shoot Your Novel: Cinematic Techniques to Supercharge Your Writing Writing the Heart of Your Story: The Secret to Crafting an Unforgettable Novel Say What?: The Fiction Writer’s Handy Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Word Usage Praise for 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 9 Fatal Flaw #1: Overwriting .......................................................................................................................... 11 The Forest for the Trees: How to Cure Overwriting ............................................................................... 12 The Devil’s in the Details ......................................................................................................................... 14 Repetition, Redundancy, and Overused Punctuation—Oh My! ............................................................. 18 The Perils of Purple Prose ....................................................................................................................... 22 How Novelists Can Say More with Less .................................................................................................. 25 Fatal Flaw #2: Nothin’ Happenin’ ................................................................................................................ 31 Nothin’ Happenin’: Finding Your Story ................................................................................................... 32 How to Get Readers into Your Story—and How to Keep Them There ................................................... 34 In Medias Res: Cutting to the Chase ....................................................................................................... 38 Right In the Middle of Things .................................................................................................................. 40 Handling Backstory in Dialogue in Your Opening Pages ......................................................................... 43 FATAL FLAW #3: Weak Construction .......................................................................................................... 49 Building Blocks: Avoiding Weak Sentence Construction ........................................................................ 50 Avoiding the Vague Swamp .................................................................................................................... 53 Keeping It Real—Avoiding Weak Construction in Dialogue .................................................................... 56 Memo from the Department of Redundancy Department .................................................................... 59 Don’t Fall into the Modifier Trap ............................................................................................................ 62 FATAL FLAW #4: Too Much Backstory ........................................................................................................ 68 Weaving It In: Backstory in Fiction .......................................................................................................... 69 How the Rule of Three Can Help Writers Avoid Backstory Slumps ........................................................ 72 The Two-Edged Sword of Backstory in Dialogue .................................................................................... 76 Backstory in Action ................................................................................................................................. 79 Too Little Backstory Can Be a Fatal Flaw ................................................................................................ 82 Fatal Flaw # 5: POV Violations .................................................................................................................... 90 Whose Head? Point of View in Fiction .................................................................................................... 91 Smooth Switches: Multiple POV Tricks and Tips..................................................................................... 94 Problematic POV—Characters’ Names, Thoughts, and Senses .............................................................. 98 Staying in Character: The Convergence of POV and Voice ................................................................... 101 Going Even Deeper into POV ................................................................................................................ 104 Fatal Flaw # 6: Telling instead of Showing ................................................................................................ 111 How Writers Can Be Storyshowers instead of Storytellers ................................................................... 112 Where’s the White Space? .................................................................................................................... 114 How Fiction Writers Can Effectively Show Emotions in Their Characters ............................................ 117 “Showing” through Your Character’s Senses ........................................................................................ 120 When It’s Better to Tell than to Show .................................................................................................. 125 Fatal Flaw #7: Lack of Pacing and Tension ................................................................................................ 131 How Fiction Writers Can Ramp Up Tension and Pacing ....................................................................... 132 Three Ways to Test the Tension and Pacing in Your Scenes................................................................. 136 Tension and Pacing through Conflict and Emotional Narrative ............................................................ 139 Layering Tension in Happyland ............................................................................................................. 142 4 Key Ways to Ramp Up Tension and Pacing in Your Novel ................................................................. 144 Fatal Flaw #8: Flawed Dialog Construction ............................................................................................... 150 Dialogue Writing 101: Conversational Mechanics ................................................................................ 151 How to Write Dialogue That Sounds like Real Speech .......................................................................... 155 Unnecessary Discourse, Talking Heads, and British Butler Syndrome ................................................. 158 How Writers Can Seek and Destroy Banal and Obvious Dialog ............................................................ 161 Talking Heads Avoidance Device ........................................................................................................... 164 Fatal Flaw #9: “Underwriting” .................................................................................................................. 173 Don’t Jump to Conclusions: The Perils of “Underwriting” .................................................................... 174 Telling the Whole Story: Fiction and the Problem of Underwriting ..................................................... 177 Avoiding Underwriting-Induced Magic ................................................................................................. 181 How Writers Can Avoid “Underwriting” Emotions ............................................................................... 184 Check Your “Underwriting”—10 Key Questions to Ask of Your Story .................................................. 187 Fatal Flaw #10: Description Deficiencies and Excesses............................................................................. 193 Writing “Personal” Description through Your POV Character .............................................................. 194 Tricks to Writing Descriptions in First-Person POV ............................................................................... 198 Body Parts Behaving Badly .................................................................................................................... 201 Going beyond the Setting ..................................................................................................................... 204 Description Errors That Result from POV Limitations ........................................................................... 207 Fatal Flaw #11: Pesky Adverbs and "Weasel Words" ..............................................................................