Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

A lot of information contained in the beginning of this book was very familiar to me. For example, Show Don't Tell has been hammered home enough in every book I've read and class I've taken that I didn't need to hear it again. The second two-thirds of the book did contain some info that was new to me.

The dialogue section had some great advice as follows:

R.U.E. - Resist the urge to explain. If the dialogue is well written, explanatory tag lines aren't necessary and are patronizing to the reader. This also prevents your characters from coming to life on the page.

One of the most common reasons for flat dialogue is formality. Try to make it sound natural, the way people actually speak. (Leave out the "Hi, how you doing?" kind of comments.)

Use sentence fragments. This is the way people actually speak. Try varying the sentences, such as stringing together two related sentences with a comma, rather than a period.

Weed out overly-complex words. Use short words packed full of consonants, rather than longer, vowel-heavy words.

Use misdirection. In actual conversation, people often misunderstand each other. Use this to make the dialogue more realistic. Have your characters misunderstand each other once in awhile. Have them answer the unspoken questions.

Read dialogue aloud -- something I always mean to do but never do.

How do you convey a character's geographical or socioeconomic background? -- through word choice cadence and grammar.

Strive to give a sense that the words you write are words real people would actually speak.

Although interior monologue is a way to disclose information that would be difficult to bring into the dialogue, don't overdo it; it can be annoying. This is something I have to watch, because I tend to like getting into my character's heads.

The Q trick: Instead of saying, "He wondered why he always ended up killing them." Say "Why did he always end up killing them?"

Beats (sometimes called stage business) are little bits of action interspersed between scenes. The action has to be add to the emotion of the scene. Don't have your characters performing actions just to have them doing something; everything should be pertinent. Too much of this interrupts the flow of the dialogue. (Something that particularly irritates me is having characters talk over dinner.)

Don't describe your characters' actions too precisely. Give your readers some hints and let them fill in with their own details. Define the action without over-defining it. (Considering my tendency to be minimal, I probably shouldn't concentrate on this.)

Beats are a natural way of defining the ebb and flow of the dialogue. How do you make your beats seem natural? The authors recommend watching your friends, what they do with their gestures when they are bored, anxious, tired. Watch old movies and notice the stage business of the actors. Keep an eye out for little movements that bring a person's personality to the surface.

Be on the lookout for places where your characters make little speeches to each other. In real life, few of us get to do that without interruption. Have your characters talk over each other and mix it up a little.

Watch out for repetition. We're accustomed to looking for repeat words and phrases, but we should also be on the lookout for repetition of effects. Do you have two sentences that convey the same information? Do you repeat settings? Do you have several scenes that serve the same purpose? I know I need to pay attention to this. I have similar scenes between Rosalind and Fred of chit-chat in the costume shop which should go, and I'm afraid that some of the black masses Jack takes Rosalind to are not different enough from each other to warrant the repetition. (I'm using this to show how he drags her into the Black Arts gradually, and I'm not sure of any other way to do it, but I'll think about how I can.)

When you try to accomplish the same effect twice, the weaker attempt is likely to undermine the power of the stronger one. (1 + 1 = 1/2)

Be on the lookout for unwarranted repetition on a larger scale. When you write two or more chapters that accomplish the same thing, or when you have two or more characters who fulfill the same role in the story. Character-combining is a good remedy for this.

The most frightening villains are the ones we could imagine ourselves being under the right circumstances. (Here again, I find myself writing more backstory on my backstory. I needed to give Jack a reason for being in league with the devil. I'm going back to fourteenth century France in which Jack began participating in Black Masses in order to overcome the outside circumstances that made their love impossible. He gained immortality at the cost of his soul, but he didn't get the one thing he really wanted - Rosalind's love.)

Proportion - Be wary of flashbacks. Even if they don't make your plot difficult to follow, they can rob your story of its forward momentum. And if you start to play with the time line of the story, it can easily become aimless.

Sophistication - There are a few self-editing tricks that can lend more sophistication to your writing. Avoid constructions that have been over-used by hack writers. Don't use, "Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him." Or "As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him."

Avoid characterization cliché's. Try to cast your characters against type or at least add a discordant note to the character's personality.

Be on the lookout for ly adverbs. Don't say, "Angrily, she set the saucer on the kitchen table." Say "She slammed the saucer on the kitchen table." In other words, use descriptive verbs.

Stringing together short sentences with commas can give your constructions a fresh feel. "Hurry up, let's get going."

Sex scenes - The last thing you want to do is to appear to work hard to achieve your effects. Use a subtler stylistic approach. Always avoid heavy-breathing. Engage your readers imagination rather than being explicit. (Someone should tell Poppy Z. Brite that.) They gave as an example the charged scene from Gone with the Wind in which Rhett whisks Scarlet up the stairs.

Voice - I went to a writing conference in NY recently in which all of the editors, when asked what they were looking for, responded, "Voice, voice, voice." How do you achieve that?

This is getting off the track of this book, but I read an article by Michael Morano on the HWA web site, the gist of which was, "Write the book that only you can write." Don't try to imitate other authors. Let your own individuality come through.

By the same token, you shouldn't overdo style. Your primary purpose as a writer is to engage your readers in your story. When the style starts to overshadow the story, it's defeating the purpose. The advice of this book is to concentrate on your characters and allow them to find their own voices.

The authors suggested reading your own writing aloud and highlighting any sections that you think are especially good, that "sing," as they put it. This represents your voice at its most effective, and making yourself conscious of it will strengthen it.

Do the same thing and highlight sections that either make you wince or leave you cold. (Highlight them in a color you dislike.) Try to analyze what makes them different from the sentences you liked. If flatness is a problem, take a look at the surrounding sentences and either vary the structure of the sentences or make them more specific. If the sentence seems obvious, check for over-explanation.

If the writing seems forced listen to the little changes you are inclined to make while reading aloud. These changes usually reflect your natural voice.

If you don't pay close attention to the people you're writing about, their voices will seem interchangeable. Come to know your characters so intimately that one of them can't speak in the same voice as another. Also, reading aloud consecutively from each character's point of view can help you spot inconsistencies.

Revise again and again until what you are writing rings true.