Tag: editing

AIDA aftermath: 4 ways the last few blog posts have changed my novel

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bang head against wall

photo by Eamon Curry

In case any of you are agonizing over changes you have to make to your work in progress due to something you learned in the AIDA blog series, rest assured: I am drinking bucketfuls of my own medicine.

Title

I’ve been holding onto the same vague title for years. It sort of means something if you’ve read the book. Sort of. By itself it is unremarkable. I know I can do better.

First Chapter

  • Trimmed some fat from my opening scene – including most of my main character’s physical description – to make room for actual character development, punchier dialogue, and an extra layer of depth that makes the perfect precursor to the rest of the book.
  • Cut a net total of 1,304 words from that chapter.

Second Chapter

My second chapter is actually the beginning of the alternate story – one that connects to the main story but not perceptibly until much later. I offer no explanation at this point. We are simply following one character and one story in the first chapter, and an entirely different character in a different setting in the second. Mere days after realizing this egregious error, I heard one of my beta readers found it disorienting.

Why is it beta readers never seem to tell you what’s wrong with your work until after you’ve figured it out yourself?

Anyway, I added some explanatory narrative at the beginning to introduce the new story and hint at the connections without giving anything away. I also cut a few hundred words.

The Entire Middle of the Whole Bloody Book

In the midst of my quest for tips on writing a page-turner, I realized something life-changing and consequently left this sentence in my Evernote app:

ONE AT A TIME, DUH!

Translation: the order in which I introduced the five characters in the main story was all wrong. I’d made my main character the last to join the group, which meant she met all four others within paragraphs of one another, and I had to pour out oodles of backstory about who each one was and how they got there and where “there” was and what they all thought of each other and how they reacted to meeting her.

I was shooting myself in the foot with a bazooka.

So I’m both changing the order and spreading things out. She’ll spend a few days with the first person she meets, actually experiencing a couple of things I only summarized in previous drafts, and meet additional characters over the next few chapters – instead of over the next few sentences.

In short, I’ll be permanently cutting several scenes I’ve rewritten dozens of times, and adding other scenes I have never written before. I’m angry, excited, exhausted, and relieved all at the same time.

 

In case you missed it here’s a rundown of the whole series:

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

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Has the AIDA blog series led you to make any painful changes to your WIP? Rant in the comments!

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47 words and phrases that slow your reader down

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Packed car trunk

Photo by Alan (click for credit)

Your neighborhood is about to be blown up by alien invaders. You have 24 hours to pack your car and get out of the city. What do you bring?

You have to choose the most essential, useful, meaningful items that you can possibly fit in a limited space. You have plenty of time to choose, but – still. You might seriously regret taking the gun instead of the pitchfork two months from now when you’ve run out of bullets and discover you have to grow your own food.

Sometimes the things that seem essential are really just taking up space. 

That’s what it’s like to write a novel.

It’s also one last tip in how to write a page-turner.

Cut the fluff.


The second A in AIDA

Fluff drags the writing. It’s clutter. Every unnecessary word makes a sentence harder to understand. The brain must sort through what’s important and what’s not, sometimes going over a sentence three or four times to make sure it read it right. More work for your readers’ weary eyes and minds. And yet another reason to stop reading.

“But I don’t have any fluff,” you might say, “Everything I say is relevant,” you might insist.

Are you sure about that?

Here are 19 examples of pointlessly wordy expressions from Strunk & White’s Rule no. 17:

  • The question as to whether (instead, say: whether)
  • There is no doubt but that (no doubt/doubtless)
  • Used for fuel purposes (used for fuel)
  • He is a man who (he)
  • In a hasty manner (hastily)
  • This is a subject that (this subject)
  • His story is a strange one. (His story is strange.)
  • The reason why is that (because)

 “the fact that” is never necessary:

  • Owing to the fact that (since / because)
  • In spite of the fact that (though / although)
  • Call your attention to the fact that (remind you / notify you)
  • I was unaware of the fact that ( I was unaware that / did not know)
  • The fact that he had not succeeded (his failure)
  • The fact that I had arrived (my arrival)

Case, character and nature are  rarely necessary:

  • In many cases, the rooms were poorly ventilated (Many of the rooms were poorly ventilated)
  • It has rarely been the case that any mistake has been made (Few mistakes have been made)
  • Acts of a hostile character/nature (Hostile acts)

Who is, which was, etc. are rarely necessary:

  • His brother, who is a member of the same firm (His brother, a member of the same firm)
  • Trafalgar, which was Nelson’s last battler (Trafalgar, Nelson’s last battle)


In On Writing Well, William Zinsser has plenty to say about clutter.

It won’t do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it’s usually because the writer hasn’t been careful enough….A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time.

He points out “[clutter] slows the reader and makes the writer seem pretentious.”

Here are 24 examples:

  • Assistance ( Help)
  • Numerous (Many)
  • Facilitate (Ease)
  • Individual (Man or woman)
  • Remainder (Rest)
  • Initial (First)
  • Implement (Do)
  • Sufficient (Enough)
  • Attempt (Try)
  • Referred to as (Called)
  • With the possible exception of (Except)
  • He totally lacked the ability to (He couldn’t)
  • Until such time as (Until)
  • For the purpose of (For)

Currently, at the present time, and at this point in time can all be replaced with now or today.

Cut fluff phrases like:

  • I might add
  • It should be pointed out
  • It is interesting to note

And phrases that indicate self-doubt (thereby and weakening the tone), like:

  • A bit
  • Sort of
  • I’m tempted to say
  • In a sense

 

I’ll add a few of my own:

  • Very [usually superfluous: very loud, very tall]
  • That [can often be cut: he thought that she was pretty vs. he thought she was pretty]
  • In order to (To)
  • Help to (Help)

Will Your voice may demand that you break some of these rules? Possibly. But only some. I challenge you to commit to cutting 500 words from out of your first chapter.* Take a word count, write it on a sticky note, stick it to your monitor and start cutting. You don’t have to cut whole paragraphs. You may not even have to cut whole sentences. Just a phrase here or there. Change from passive voice to active to save a word or two. Get clever. When you’ve cut reached your 500 mark, go back and reread the chapter. See just how much sharper the writing is.

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* This is assuming Only if you’re in the final editing stages. If you’re still fixing plot problems, don’t worry about line editing yet.

NOTE: The actual edits in this post are examples, not rules. For voice, it might have been wise to leave some of the phrasing as it was.  But none of the cuts confused the meaning – good to know if you’re ever up against a word limit.

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4 steps to convince people they NEED to read your novel

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Photo by Leah Tautkute

Photo by Leah Tautkute

 

Did you take the leap with me last week and admit to yourself that your writing is what needs improving–not your friends’ tastes? Are you ready to find out how to fix it?

Meet AIDA.

No, AIDA isn’t the personal writing coach I’ve hired to help you turn your novel into a bestseller, but if you want to think of it that way, go ahead.

AIDA is an acronym for Attention > Interest > Desire > Action: a basic formula marketers and salespeople use to guide them through each phase of the sales process. It goes like this:

Attention: Get noticed. In a media-saturated world, this is hard to do.

Interest: Once you have their attention, prove you have something worth their time–by giving them the most compelling part of your message in as brief a form as possible.

Desire: Once you have their interest, show them how the product will meet a need they have.

Action: Once they know they want it, tell them how to get it.

How does it apply to your novel?

Attention:

Getting a friend’s attention could be as simple as letting them know you’re writing a book (“Really? What’s it about?”). For a literary agent you’re querying, it’s spelling their name right and following all the submission guidelines. But for your toughest audience—the book store customer who’s never heard of you—it’s a lot tougher. You need a cover and a title that stand out among hundreds of others. We’ll talk more about this in the coming weeks.

Interest:

What makes this worth the time of the friend, literary agent, or customer? This one’s a bit trickier, but it follows the question your friend asked you when you got their attention: what’s it about? You have to summarize your story in the most compelling way possible, in a few sentences. This is known as your elevator pitch or “hook”—it’s how you’ll describe your book to people at cocktail parties, how you’ll begin your query letter, and what you’ll give to the writer or intern who’ll craft the copy for your book cover. This is the part that makes your friend ask to read it, the agent to request a full or partial manuscript, and the customer to flip to page one. I’ve actually already covered the hook extensively:

Action:

I’m gonna do a flip-flop on you and talk about Action first, because before we can understand the Desire phase, we have to understand what action we want our audience to take. For a friend it might just be to finish reading the book. For an agent it’s to offer representation. For the book-store customer, it’s to buy the book. It seems like three very different stages, but really it all boils down to the same thing: you want them to keep reading. You have to suck them in fast. You have to make them want to know what happens next. Which brings us to:

Desire:

How do you convince a reader this piece of fiction is something they need? Ask yourself—why do you read? Is it an escape from reality? An alleviation of boredom? A hunt for truth? A search for someone who understands you?

It’s sure to be one of those reasons. It may be all of them.

Those are the needs. And it takes the whole book to meet those needs. But the promise—and the evidence—that you can meet those needs happen in the first few pages. That bookstore customer is not going to keep reading to see if it gets better—you must grab them in the first paragraph. And to keep all your readers reading, you have to keep sucking them in deeper and deeper throughout the entire book.

A variety of factors affect this “sucking in.” But there are two main things you absolutely can’t succeed without:

  1. A relatable protagonist.
  2. Conflict.

If your reader relates to, or identifies with, your hero, you’ve begun forging an emotional connection. When you add conflict—which usually involves threatening the thing that hero loves most—you create the reader’s need to find out: “What happens next? Does the hero overcome the conflict?” And, since the reader relates to this hero, the subconscious question: “Could I overcome that conflict?”

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Discover the Whole AIDA Series:

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

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man reading

How to get people to read your book.

Why no one is reading your work

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image by Proxy Indian

image by Proxy Indian

I was terrified. I was ecstatic. Sending my novel – my brainchild – out into the world for the first time. By “the world” I mean, to a few of my closest friends. My brother and best friend finished within a week. Probably due in part to a feeling of obligation. “It’s great!” they said, “Wouldn’t change a thing.”

Months went by. I checked in with my other best friend, who hadn’t gotten past chapter seven. “I’ve been busy,” she said. “That’s fine,” I said lightly, but felt hurt.

Years later, she (and the few others I sent that draft to) still haven’t finished reading it.

Oh, I was hurt for awhile. Angry. I distinctly remember telling some of them off in a forum message about eight months after that draft went out.

See, I had poured my soul out into that book. My soul. And my soul wasn’t interesting enough to even tempt the attention of my closest friends? I told myself the writing wasn’t the problem – after all, no one could tell me a thing that needed changing, aside from a typo or two. No, my friends just didn’t understand how important this was to me.

Awhile later, I realized chapter seven was possibly the worst combination of English words ever typed on paper, and I began a complete overhaul of the novel (one of countless overhauls). It occurred to me that the people close to me are naturally going to look at my book differently from one they’d pick up at Barnes & Noble – they’re not going to notice much wrong with it, specifically. But if they can’t finish it – that’s a sign it ain’t too good.

I started to realize that the problem was the writing, not my friends.

But I didn’t fully realize what that meant until a few years later, after I had been in marketing for awhile. You see, if an advertisement doesn’t get any attention, nobody blames the audience. It’s not a shortcoming of the product advertised, either – it’s a shortcoming of whoever created the ad.

If people aren’t reading your stuff, it’s not because your soul is boring.

It’s because your writing is boring.

There, I said it. Don’t get offended; I’m in the same boat.

It doesn’t mean we have to get depressed and self-deprecating. It just means we have to get better.

See, I discovered something copywriters use, that few aspiring novelist even think about.

Strategy.

An example: What do most novelists think about? Grammar. Punctuation. Plot. Character development. Poetic descriptions.

Copywriters, on the other hand, are asking: Who is the target audience? What part of my message will resonate with them on the deepest emotional level? What’s the quickest way I can convey that message? How can I grab their attention and keep their attention? How can I make them feel a certain way? How can I make them take action?

Funny how a lot of those questions could be applied to a novel, huh?

Oh, we’re told a lot of the same things copywriters are told. Show, don’t tell. Create relatable characters. Keep the action moving. But if you’re like me – if you’re experiencing the same kind of thing I described at the beginning of this post – you’re just not getting it. Not really.

So I propose this: we step back and look at our work from a different perspective. From a marketing perspective. In the next few weeks, I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned, some of the things I’m implementing in my own novel right now – all while digging deeper into how basic marketing principles can be applied to fiction. We’ll learn together.

You see, I want to write a novel that no one can put down.

Who’s with me?

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UPDATE: READ THE WHOLE SERIES

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

How to Master Apostrophes with Ease

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Photo by Brian Kelly

Photo by David Goerhing

Above are just two (technically three) examples of an error that pervades the English-speaking world almost as thickly as the incorrect use of the word “literally.” So I thought I’d do a quick, yet comprehensive, apostrophe usage guide that will actually be easy to understand.

When Apostrophes are Needed:

Possessives – when a noun owns (possesses!) another noun. Usually you indicate a word is possessive by adding an apostrophe and an ‘s’. Example: Stephanie’s blog means the blog owned by or associated with Stephanie.

Contractions – when you contract two words so tightly together that some of the letters pop out, leaving only an apostrophe. Example: don’t (from do not), I’ve (from I have), there’s (from there is), y’all (from you all – it’s a word, people!). [Bonus tip: if you’re writing dialogue in an accent, you use apostrophes wherever you drop letters, like you drop the ‘g’ in shootin’ the breeze. That’s how we Texans talk, anyhow.]

When Apostrophes are NOT Needed:

Plurals – a word that indicates there are more than one of something. We pluralize most words by adding an ‘s’ at the end. But NOT an apostrophe. Example: houses (more than one house), apostrophes (more than one apostrophe).

Singular Third Person Present Tense Verbs – actions done by one person you are talking about (not to); add an ‘s’ but NOT an apostrophe. Words like gets, owns, drives, writes. For instance, I walk, and you walk, but he walks. NOT he walk’s.

When it Gets Complicated

Plural possessives – when more than one thing owns something else, add an ‘s’ and then an apostrophe. For instance: the girls’ hair is red (two girls have red hair) versus the girl’s hair is red (one girl has red hair).

It’s vs. Its

Okay, so the possessives and contractions rule seemed pretty great, but, as seems to be inevitable with the English language, there was this one word that rebelled: It. You know; the giant brain from A Wrinkle in Time. I don’t know why the Powers That Be deemed it necessary to eliminate the apostrophe from possessive its, because context should in any case make the meaning clear. Probably just to torture kids in English class. But the standing rule is this:

It’s is a contraction for it is.

Its is the possessive form of it.

So there you have it.

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