Editing advice from Margaret Atwood
Dec. 8th, 2009 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteCanadian novelist Margaret Atwood has a handful of tips on editing your own fiction that are worth sharing.
I confess that I was of two minds about sharing this link, since Atwood has spent a surprising amount of time denying that she writes science fiction, as if there's something wrong with writing such fiction. It pisses me off that someone who should know better isn't aware of the distinction between good and bad science fiction—imagine how pleased she'd be if everyone dismissed her as a novelist because she writes literature or (the horror!) feminist literature.
Okay, enough ranting. The advice is good, but needless to say, I have a few quibbles and thoughts of my own inspired by Atwood's recommendations (read her blog post for details of each recommendation):
1. The beginning:
Nothing especially insightful here, since this boils down to letting the reader know where they've landed, and giving them a reason to stay to learn more. But it's surprising how many writers forget this.
2. “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait.” He put “wait” at the end because it was crucial. (In any series of three, the third is the most important.)
The notion of suspense ("setting the hook") is clearly important for fiction, since you want to give readers a reason to keep reading: as soon as they think they know everything that will happen, many will stop reading then and there. But the rule of three is often abused. Consider the following sentence: "You'll die if you don't read the warnings that follow, so follow them and you'll be happy and successful." Clearly the first point is most important, followed by the second. Emphasis is not solely positional, so beware overly prescriptive advice such as this one.
3. Verbs shall agree with subjects... [unless you want] to indicate that the character has a weak grasp of this principle.
Good advice, but with a caveat: readers often fail to make the distinction between the author and the character. (Sometimes they're thick, sometimes they're tired, and sometimes it really is your fault.) So if you do this, you need to be careful to find a way to communicate that the problem is with the narrator, not you. Maintaining rigorous consistency of voice helps.
4. Verb tenses...
No comment, other than to note that some tenses can become cloying if overdone, even if they're technically correct. Rely on your ear (read it aloud!) or the ear of anyone who isn't you (read it aloud to them and look for flinches, glazing eyes, or other signs of distress).
5. The gerund mistake. A common one. “Walking along the beach, a pair of boots was seen.”
This example isn't really a gerund mistake as such, since the typical gerund is a noun form of a verb; for example, "walking is good exercise". Rather, this is a specific case (incorrect use of the present participle) of a more general problem, namely failure to make the actor or the object or subject of a verb clear, thereby associating the verb with the wrong actor. It's also a deliberately poor use of passive voice. Adding the actor ("he saw the boots") solves the problem in pretty much any case.
6. Readers... will fill in quite a lot.
Except when they won't. One mustn't overexplain, of course, but you do need to identify "critical points of failure": what information, if omitted, would completely prevent the reader from understanding? For such details, it may be safer to explain a bit more than you really need to for your most clever readers—but not to overexplain. How can you tell? Ask someone who isn't you.
7. Dialogue. How do people actually talk?
Good advice, with the usual caveat that different characters speak differently. When in doubt, ask someone to read the dialogue aloud to you, and listen for awkward phrasings, excessive similarity between characters, and other glitches.
8. Point of view. Whose eyes are we looking through?
Shoshanna has a great discussion of this that I hope she'll provide a link to. If not, remind me and I'll nag her. I find that a very useful technique is to imagine, as author, that you're actually playing the role of a video camera:
In first-person narration, imagine that you're mounted on the narrator's head. You can only see what the narrator sees and hear what they hear as they move around your story, though you can certainly infer anything they might logically infer from what they see or hear. Anything that happens offstage is something you simply can't describe.
In second-person narration, imagine that you're mounted on the narrator's head but focused on the audience, who is listening to you with (hopefully) rapt attention. Whatever you say, you're speaking to that audience based on what you've seen or heard previously, or what you imagine happened.
In third-person narration, imagine that you're a camera mounted on a long boom, floating around to see and hear what there is to see and hear. In the limited-omniscient version, you can only report what you can see with your eyes and hear with your ears. In the full omniscient form, you can actually peer inside the head of characters and read their thoughts.
The same goes for smell, touch, and taste, of course, mutatis mutandis, because the video camera metaphor breaks down at that point.
9. The second person problem.
Be aware that many readers despise this form, and that it's difficult to do well.
10. The ending... Ask: is this how you want to sign off?
And whether you want to encourage the reader to desperately want to come back for the sequel, or be satisfied that you've achieved closure. Be very sure that you've achieved closure. You don't have to conclude the whole 70-year saga of someone's life, but you do have to reach a logical resting point where the actors can pause to draw breath before moving on to their next adventure.
That's particularly true if it's going to be some time before you can complete the sequel. I love Charles Stross, but the long wait between installments is intensely frustrating. I may end up treating him the same way I treat C.J. Cherryh: that is, wait until the series is complete, buy all the books, and then devour them in one sitting. That's not to say you should completely eschew cliffhangers—just be aware that if you've really lured the reader into your story, they're bloody annoying.
I confess that I was of two minds about sharing this link, since Atwood has spent a surprising amount of time denying that she writes science fiction, as if there's something wrong with writing such fiction. It pisses me off that someone who should know better isn't aware of the distinction between good and bad science fiction—imagine how pleased she'd be if everyone dismissed her as a novelist because she writes literature or (the horror!) feminist literature.
Okay, enough ranting. The advice is good, but needless to say, I have a few quibbles and thoughts of my own inspired by Atwood's recommendations (read her blog post for details of each recommendation):
1. The beginning:
Nothing especially insightful here, since this boils down to letting the reader know where they've landed, and giving them a reason to stay to learn more. But it's surprising how many writers forget this.
2. “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait.” He put “wait” at the end because it was crucial. (In any series of three, the third is the most important.)
The notion of suspense ("setting the hook") is clearly important for fiction, since you want to give readers a reason to keep reading: as soon as they think they know everything that will happen, many will stop reading then and there. But the rule of three is often abused. Consider the following sentence: "You'll die if you don't read the warnings that follow, so follow them and you'll be happy and successful." Clearly the first point is most important, followed by the second. Emphasis is not solely positional, so beware overly prescriptive advice such as this one.
3. Verbs shall agree with subjects... [unless you want] to indicate that the character has a weak grasp of this principle.
Good advice, but with a caveat: readers often fail to make the distinction between the author and the character. (Sometimes they're thick, sometimes they're tired, and sometimes it really is your fault.) So if you do this, you need to be careful to find a way to communicate that the problem is with the narrator, not you. Maintaining rigorous consistency of voice helps.
4. Verb tenses...
No comment, other than to note that some tenses can become cloying if overdone, even if they're technically correct. Rely on your ear (read it aloud!) or the ear of anyone who isn't you (read it aloud to them and look for flinches, glazing eyes, or other signs of distress).
5. The gerund mistake. A common one. “Walking along the beach, a pair of boots was seen.”
This example isn't really a gerund mistake as such, since the typical gerund is a noun form of a verb; for example, "walking is good exercise". Rather, this is a specific case (incorrect use of the present participle) of a more general problem, namely failure to make the actor or the object or subject of a verb clear, thereby associating the verb with the wrong actor. It's also a deliberately poor use of passive voice. Adding the actor ("he saw the boots") solves the problem in pretty much any case.
6. Readers... will fill in quite a lot.
Except when they won't. One mustn't overexplain, of course, but you do need to identify "critical points of failure": what information, if omitted, would completely prevent the reader from understanding? For such details, it may be safer to explain a bit more than you really need to for your most clever readers—but not to overexplain. How can you tell? Ask someone who isn't you.
7. Dialogue. How do people actually talk?
Good advice, with the usual caveat that different characters speak differently. When in doubt, ask someone to read the dialogue aloud to you, and listen for awkward phrasings, excessive similarity between characters, and other glitches.
8. Point of view. Whose eyes are we looking through?
Shoshanna has a great discussion of this that I hope she'll provide a link to. If not, remind me and I'll nag her. I find that a very useful technique is to imagine, as author, that you're actually playing the role of a video camera:
The same goes for smell, touch, and taste, of course, mutatis mutandis, because the video camera metaphor breaks down at that point.
9. The second person problem.
Be aware that many readers despise this form, and that it's difficult to do well.
10. The ending... Ask: is this how you want to sign off?
And whether you want to encourage the reader to desperately want to come back for the sequel, or be satisfied that you've achieved closure. Be very sure that you've achieved closure. You don't have to conclude the whole 70-year saga of someone's life, but you do have to reach a logical resting point where the actors can pause to draw breath before moving on to their next adventure.
That's particularly true if it's going to be some time before you can complete the sequel. I love Charles Stross, but the long wait between installments is intensely frustrating. I may end up treating him the same way I treat C.J. Cherryh: that is, wait until the series is complete, buy all the books, and then devour them in one sitting. That's not to say you should completely eschew cliffhangers—just be aware that if you've really lured the reader into your story, they're bloody annoying.