PRESENT TENSE DRIVES ME NUTS
I last talked about this in May 2013, but it keeps popping up in books everywhere. What really bugs me is not what people say to my face, but what I know some of them think. I’m old and set in my ways for not liking and accepting present tense writing. They look at me, see a few (well maybe more than a few) wrinkles and my gray hair and automatically think, ancient.
Well, I’ve got news for those of you with your blatant touches of ageism. I didn’t come to my conclusions about present tense neither lightly or without plenty of experimentation. I know when not to stick my hand in the virtual electrical outlet. I also know after over five decades of reading (which I’d call a bit of experience), what I like and don’t like. If you think I haven’t read several hundred present-tense books to find that out, you’re deluded.
I DON’T LIKE BEING RUSHED
In the world of ADHD, thirty-second attention span people, present tense makes a lot of sense. When I read prose written in that style, I get the feeling the author is trying to rush me through the story. With people afflicted with hyperactivity, ADHD, etc., the style might be a perfect fit. Others, who like to be dragged along might also find it appealing. I am in no way demeaning anyone or drawing parallels here, just guessing how this style might fit certain readers. That’s how present tense makes me feel. It rushes me and irritates me and makes me feel like the author is trying to push me along instead of letting me relax and enjoy the story. It pisses me off.
TEEN AUTHORS LOVE IT
The big trend with teen authors is present tense, which many young people eat up because they’re relatively new readers and don’t know any better. They’re still experiencing the thrill of finding their comfort zones and it might be decades before they reach that zone where certain styles just bug the crap out of them. Many people will always be open to any style of writing and never reach the spot I’m in. However, I know quite a few that are just like me. They only read third person, past tense. I’m not alone. It’s not just old farts like me.
Teen authors love present tense because teens are used to the MTV-style thirty-second attention span they’re bred on. That translates to what they read and see in movies. They don’t have to be stricken with ADHD or some other affliction to be drawn into that culture.
Just look at the music industry. Why should bands bother to make albums when fans will sample their whole album on the net, grab one or two songs and be done with them. Short attention span. Bands have to tour to make money because then the audience is captive, given a different experience in a social, live setting where they have to pay more attention.
WITH ADULTS, THINGS CHANGE A BIT
Adults tend to slow a bit and smell the roses, cliché intended. This is where present tense doesn’t shine and past tense is much more compatible with telling a good story.
I’ve experimented with present tense, just for a hoot. I wrote a very short story called The Word Factory, just for a goof. I’ll never write another one like it. Ever.
Also, it doesn’t make sense to use present tense to tell about the past or something in chronological order. Or, use it for flashbacks. If it’s in the past, it should be past tense, not present tense. It’s contradictory.
There’s always the mantra, a good story is all that matters, no matter what form.
Well, I’ll tell you. You can spoil a fantastic story by how you tell it.
If you tell it in a lousy format, you’ve just lost half your audience.
If you tell the story in a format that’s more comfortable for a wider audience, you can reach more people. Duh!
Happy writing!
STARTING A STORY
I’m a member of the Rayne’s Writers Research group which I think is a Yahoo group and I get lots of e-mails a week, most of which I just file a way for future reference. Some strike my interest while others I could care less about. One came up this morning, as I write this (Saturday) and it was a thread about never starting a story with the weather. Someone said it’s cliché.
Oh boy…
I have my own theories about starting a story and I’ve covered them before while talking about the First Page Read from the conference. Then again, there’s never enough talking about starting stories, so I’ll continue here with another perspective, and probably rehash a bunch of what I’ve already said.
EVERYTHING IS A CLICHÉ
Let’s get the oilyfink in the room out of the way right off (by the way that’s elephant in Popeye speak). I was telling another guy in Absolute Write Water Cooler about his ghost story, that everything is already a cliché, while he was trying to avoid them. I said to just follow your muse and don’t worry about it. The same could be said for starting a story.
The big difference is don’t start with “It was a dark and stormy night.”
That’s just asking for trouble. Also it is passive and doesn’t start from a character’s point of view unless it’s first-person. That’s one cliché you don’t need.
Okay, agents will tell you they’re sick and tired of opening a story with weather, looking in a mirror, bla bla bla… those scream cliché. Oh, and don’t forget dialogue! Never start a story with dialogue! Oh, and how about a half dozen or more other things.
In other words, it’s literally (pun intended) impossible to start a story. “They” want you to find an impossible way to start your story because they’ve seen them all.
A great way to get inspired, right?
Say you find a unique and inventive way to do it, then what happens? Soon it will be tomorrow’s cliché!
Then, it’s back to the original clichés which now become new again.
START WITH A SPECIFIC CHARACTER AND ACTION
Don’t worry about clichés and start with action. Dive right into something happening. Don’t screw around with:
- Description. There’s nothing worse than boring the reader with describing the scene. Save that for later chapters or within the scenes.
- Back story. Do not start the story with back story! Start the story in the now. Begin with something happening and leak in the back story as the character is going along.
- Poems. If you’re going to have one, do it before the story starts. That way, if the reader (like me) isn’t into poetry, we/they can skip it and get right to the reading.
- Dialogue. Have to character do something and name him before he starts speaking. Make a setting so the reader knows where they are and why they are speaking. This does not mean a long description of the setting, but a very brief line about who, what, where, when and why before the talking starts. This plays a fine line between adequate description and too much. Blend it in with the character doing something.
GET THE STORY MOVING BEFORE BOGGING DOWN WITH DETAILS
The key is to get the story moving with an action scene before slowing down a bit with details. You need to get momentum then slowly leak in details, background, back story…whatever. Don’t slam the reader with it right out of the gate. You’ll lose them and any potential agent or publisher.
WHAT ABOUT THE CLICHÉS AGAIN?
Back to the old weather cliché that one guy was worried about. So what? If you start with the character fighting the weather, instead of describing it, that could work. Then again, you don’t want to have a character looking in a mirror. Maybe smashing a mirror, cursing at it, but not looking into it. As for dialogue, have the character perform some kind of action, then start the dialogue. There’s nothing wrong with that. By starting with dialogue, I meant as the first line.
Sometimes, you just have to feel it out, but be prepared to alter it if someone cries foul.
Happy writing.
DEALING WITH TELL
I get a lot of grief from tell, even though I’m very aware of it. In my own work, where I thought I was clean of most, if not all tell, guess what? When I got into that deep edit recently of Treasure Of The Umbrunna, the editor found plenty.
Ahem…
As an editor myself, tell was one of the largest hurdles I had to overcome in my own writing. When I see it in other writing, I often cringe.
TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL – ACTIVE VOICE
Everybody’s heard the old mantra, “What are you talking about? What about telling a story? Haven’t you ever heard your mother or father tell you a bedtime story?”
Well… by telling you a story, they’re narrating a story to you, reading it either from text, reciting it from memory… or making it up. They’re relating something to you, telling you something.
That’s what telling really means by that.
When it comes to reading a story yourself, when the author tells it to you in text, they’re relating the story ideas to you in a non-active and passive way. In other words, a disembodied voice other than the character is telling you about what is happening rather than the character showing it to you through their actions.
Example: Mary felt giddy when she met John.
Why is that tell? Why is that not active?
Mary felt: The author is telling you Mary felt giddy. The author shouldn’t tell you that.
Mary should show you that through her actions or thoughts.
Also, when is passive because it’s vague and she could’ve met him a year or a few seconds ago. Who knows? The next few or previous sentences may will or have explained that, but then that addition to the sentence becomes moot.
How about this: Mary shook John’s hand. An electric shiver ran up her arm. Wow! This guy is hot!
Okay, now it’s active. We know when it took place. Mary made clear and showed you what she felt, not the author.
It’s easy to get lazy and just write it down in the simplest terms we know. I do it all the time and have to clean up the mess afterward. I try to look for key tell words like felt, wondered, seemed, etc, but don’t always see them because my mind fills in blanks of what I’m thinking rather than what I’m reading.
ALL TELL
At the writer’s group meeting the other evening, I read a wonderful historical story chapter, simultaneously, while the lady read it to the group. The story has potential and a lot to like. However, it has one major problem. I made corrections and gave up after the first three paragraphs. After that, I continued only to find more of the same. There was no further point correcting the same thing over and over again.
The entire narrative was tell, with no active voice. Told in omniscient, third-person point of view, the voice came from a disembodied presence. Even the dialogue tags were told, rather than shown.
I gave an honest, critique of what she needed to do to fix it, but I have a feeling she’s never going to give me her pages to read again. If she does, I’ll be very happy!
You cannot tell an entire story with no active voice. It comes of flat and emotionless – It gives no emotional investment to the characters or the reader.
MY NEMESIS
Tell has been my nemesis for a long time and it clicks when I see it in other people’s work, but my own, fugeddaboudit.
They’re not called “other” editors for nothing!
Plus, editors know better than to edit their own stuff. There are a few that can, but that’s not common. At least I can admit I’m partially blind to it, though I don’t do as bad as some writers. I know my weaknesses.
I’ve tried to explain it to you in as simple terms as I can. For someone who didn’t have a clue what it meant for years, I hope this has been a help to clarify it for you.
If you have any more questions about it, feel free to contact me here or at my other e-mail at fred@fredrayworth.com
Happy writing!
DIALOGUE SATURATION
Narrative is the foundation, or the building blocks of the story. Dialogue is what moves it along, breathes life into it. Without dialogue, you have no characters, no people to interact within the foundation. Don’t get me started with those single-character novels because they at least have internal dialogue or the characters talk to themselves. I would never read them anyway. Too boring. Maybe that’s something for you though.
On with the show…
SOLID WORDS ON THE PAGE
I’ve said many times that I don’t like e-readers because I can’t leaf through the book first. One of the things I look for, besides point of view, is solid words, page after page. That sends up a red flag. If I don’t see empty spaces on the pages, that means the author is very wordy.
Now, to my point on dialogue saturation. To avoid too much narrative, some authors go for talky. Instead of endless paragraph after endless paragraph of solid narration describing scenes every-which-way, they’ll have the characters do it for them through dialogue.
Not good.
How many people do you know talk in half or full page paragraphs without taking huge breaths? How about letting someone else get a word in edgewise? I read one book where the author did, but the other speaker replied with half and one page paragraphs as well! Aaagh!
Who might do that in real life?
Valley girls and politicians.
Okay, maybe I’m being facetious, stereotyping a bit. You get the point.
AVOIDING SHOW NOT TELL CONUNDRUMS
By changing your long narrative to dialogue, you’ve found a cheap and easy way to avoid the show not tell conundrum! The problem is that it’s not realistic. In the real world, most people, especially detectives, action heroes, spies, whatever, don’t talk in long speeches. They especially don’t describe their surroundings, what they’re doing, and what they’re about to do to everyone.
Can you believe that I’m citing examples of published books? No, these are not self-published novels, but conventional novels, some of which are sitting on the shelves right now at Barnes & Noble.
DON’T CHEAT THE SYSTEM
Dialogue needs to be realistic and should not be used to cheat the system to avoid having to avoid show not tell. It should not be used to substitute for narrative.
I personally prefer plenty of brisk dialogue and short narrative sentences. I like to see plenty of empty spaces on the page. Sure, I like words and vivid descriptions, but I also like the author to get to the point!
You can paint a vivid picture in twenty-five words as well as three hundred and fifty words! You can get to the point in four as well as thirty pages. You can move a story just fine with a mixture of witty dialogue and concise narrative.
Happy writing!
AVOIDING NOUN-VERB COMBINATIONS
One of the struggles of presenting dialogue, is how to tag it so the reader knows who’s speaking. There’s the direct he said and she said. Then there’s the implied tags which aren’t really tags at all. If you want to go to the extreme, there’s no dialogue at all, but who wants to read a story like that?
An increasingly popular form of tag is the action tag. They’re effective and avoid the “said” word while also providing a way for the character to perform something and move the story. However, they can also make you fall into a deadly pattern of the noun-verb combination and readers will spot that if you have too many of them per page.
The noun-verb combination also applies to narrative, which I’ll address a bit later.
CONVENTIONAL TAGS
The old standby is said.
“I told you so,” John said.
However, if you have a lot of characters on the page or a lot of dialogue, beginning writers will see too many saids on the page and go for variety by changing them to other words. Yup, pull out the old thesaurus and you get, accused, implied, droned, huffed, etc.
In modern writing, those have become passé and publishers and editors increasingly see them as amateurish.
The same for asked.
“What do I do now?” Mary asked.
Should be “What do I do now?” Mary said.
Said, is an old standby and should be used sparingly because it creates a pattern. The idea is to avoid patterns. You need to mix it up!
IMPLIED TAGS
Implied tags are the sneaky ones. If the conversation is between two people, once the two speakers are identified, all you need to do is identify each of them once in a while so the reader doesn’t lose track of who’s speaking, and you don’t need to keep tagging every single line. The rhythm implies each character.
“This is awful. What do we do?” Mary did not want to face her father.
Willie sighed and peeked around the door. “I suggest we wait until tomorrow.
“I don’t know. He’ll get mad.” (implied)
“Who cares?” (implied)
“I do.” Mary shoved Willie aside and went into the living room.
Notice that I also used action tags in this example.
ACTION TAGS
Action tags have the character doing something instead of just tagging them with said, or ask, or some other verb. This is a very good way to move the story, add a bit of narrative and avoid conventional tags. The issue is avoiding noun-verb patterns.
The problem with action tags is that they can leak over into the narrative. They both convey movement.
When you get blasting away with your writing, sit back and take a look at the result. If you use action tags with your narrative, you may be surprised to see a lot of paragraphs, including dialogue, beginning something like this:
The ranger squirmed
Meleena squinted
She fastened
Leeth turned
Leeth looked
There’s nothing wrong with having a few on each page, one or two maybe, but many more than that and it becomes a pattern. You need to break them up! You can’t have them at the beginning of every sentence or the reader may think they’re reading a poem. After a while they’ll feel the monotony.
This is where you may not even be aware you’re doing it and it might take another reader to point them out to you. It happened to me, if you notice the names in the above sentence starters (and are aware of my fantasy story). Some of them are tags while others are narrative. However, they all add up to a pattern I never saw until my editor pointed them out.
I’ve found it quite a challenge to fix without creating more patterns.
It takes a bit of thought to reword from noun-verb. You can cut a few and shift others later in the paragraph (or put them at the end the dialogue). For some, it’s a matter of rearranging words to shift the noun-verb to later in the sentence.
The idea is to break the pattern!
Patterns create tedium.
The other thought I want to emphasize is that patterns are not the same as style! Style is your voice, not the mechanics of your prose. Don’t try to be lax with your writing and use the excuse that it’s your style.
Happy writing!
2015 CONFERENCE AFTERMATH
It’s with a bit of sadness and a bit of joy that I say goodbye to the 2015 Las Vegas Writer’s Conference. Even though I quote myself from a Facebook post I made last night (as I write this), it’s appropriate for how I feel about my tenth conference.
This time, I attended with no specific agenda. I had no intention of pitching any of my novels because none of the agents represented the genre that I need representation. I’ll get into that more in a moment. As for classes, or more accurately, sessions, I took more advantage of them than in the past.
My main intent was to be there and have a great time, and that’s what I did, despite for the third year in a row, having a family crisis looming. Yup, the past three years in April have been rough. I don’t know why, but April hasn’t been great for the Rayworth family the past few years, and it happens to coincide with my writing Woodstock. Oh well, you have to take the good with the bad.
THE SESSIONS
For the first time, I have tangible book publication looming. Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure of the Umbrunna, or specifically Treasure Of The Umbrunna is coming out in late July, early August. For this conference, though I helped set up, register attendees and run the front desk, I also had some me-time, especially on Friday, day two. There were several sessions on book marketing and soliciting reviews for your book and such. I’ve historically avoided most of those sessions at past conferences except to take one occasionally, just to make the rounds because I had nothing to market. Sure, I did attend a variety of them to educate myself on as many aspects of the craft as I could, but never in concentration because I knew I’d forget. Besides, by the time I got to the point of publication, as it actually turned out, a lot of that info ended up being obsolete.
A lot of that old marketing info did become obsolete, especially with the changes to social media and the way the face of the publishing industry has changed over the years. Not everything has changed, but enough that I’m glad I waited to get the most up-to-date stuff!
The result is that I dedicated my time to marketing-my-book sessions on Friday, sessions which were all repeated Saturday.
AGENT AND PUBLISHER PITCHING
I’ve talked about this before. I advised several new conference attendees that despite what the bios in the (quite excellent, by the way) program we received say about each agent and publisher, sometimes they’re not accurate. In fact, occasionally, what the bio says they take for submissions is such fantasy, you have to wonder why they (and I mean the agent or their agency) submitted it to us to print. I once pitched my icky bug to an agent that supposedly took icky bug, according to their bio. Nope. They took Christian fiction. Say what?
Like I told the newbies, go ahead and pitch to them anyway, just for practice. You’ll never see them again anyway, and you never know. Maybe they know someone from their agency that does take your genre. Then again, maybe the agent or publisher will like your charm and make an exception.
I had a running joke with Audrey, the agent coordinator that took all the pitches. I asked her for all the open pitch sessions, at once. When she inevitably told me “no way,” I told her I wanted them also! I asked her several times throughout the conference, just to keep her on her toes.
CHATTING PEOPLE UP
Besides working the front desk and meeting virtually everyone, I’d walk around or go sit at my usual table, which this time was #11 in the ballroom. Usually, people would join me and we’d start the conversation. “Hello, I’m so and so.” “What do you write.” “Where are you from.” The conversation would go on from there. It was great to talk shop.
What was so nice about this conference was the size. Not too big and not too small. I heard if from not only the attendees, but the faculty. Notice I said attendees and faculty? That’s because we intermingled. We all sat together and talked shop. There was no segregation. The small, integrated group wasn’t rushed, wasn’t so small that nothing happened, yet it was intimate enough that everyone was able to get something of value.
Sure we had some sour apples in the bunch, as we always do, but I’ll tell you what. There are those that are repeat attendees and those first timers that will be back next year. There are a few that attended the big events on the coasts that say “never again.”
I know I’m ready to fill out my early bird form and start paying for next year. I should have a book to plug by then. I only hope I don’t have another family crisis like the past few Aprils.
Happy writing!
I REVIEW ALMOST EVERYTHING
I can’t say when it started, exactly, but I can tell you why. It all boils down to my love of writing, being able to pop off a thought almost as fast as I can think it in written form (well digitally speaking), and wanting others to know what I think of things that I read, listen to and use.
Amazon provides an outlet to review products they sell. It’s become a platform to express my opinions on just about anything, as long as it’s something they offer.
BOOKS
The first reviews, of course, started with books because that was the original product Amazon sold. My early reviews were awful. I found out how bad when I went through my wyberry to get rid of books. I did an inventory on Amazon to make sure I’d reviewed everything before I took them to the Goodwill. Those I hadn’t reviewed yet, I did an after-the-fact review based on what I recalled. Thanks to a great memory, and maybe glancing through and spot reading, I was able to jar the synapses.
During that process, I reread some of my very first reviews and oh boy! I’ve come a looong way, not only in grammar but in details and general value of the reviews. However, I’m not going to go back and change every one of them.
Some are so old, the books are no longer in print and Amazon has dropped them into a limbo status. They’re still buried in there, but if you didn’t know to look for them, you’d never see them.
I have 511 book reviews saved in my document files. According to Amazon, I’ve done a total of 985 including music and other products that almost but don’t quite add up to that many. So, I’ve done a few over the years and failed to save a bunch of them on the computer.
My ranking right now is #5,557 with a 74% helpful rating. I have no idea what that really means, but at least a few people have read a fraction of my reviews, though many of those reviews are for products so obscure, I doubt they’ll ever be read. Or, as in the case with many of them, they’re on something very popular and my reviews are buried in the mix and aren’t controversial enough to generate any interest. Oh well, I don’t write reviews for popularity, I write them to state what I think. I don’t care if anyone reads them. They’re on record “juss cuz.”
MOVIES & TV
I couldn’t leave out significant movies and TV shows when they struck my fancy. However, some of them I couldn’t review because Amazon didn’t list them. Also, many times, I just fergotted to review them. I’m much more lapse about this side of things. If I reviewed every movie I’ve seen, the count would be much more than the 94 I have in the file. I’m especially lapsed in the Saturday evening icky bugs I watch on SyFy.
MUSIC
I’ve done a lot better at music reviews. I was especially diligent about reviewing vinyl albums and cassette tapes, and even some reel to reel tapes because I’ve been burning them to CD so I could sell off the old format. After I’d burn them and then play them the requisite four times to remind me what they sounded like, I’d do a fresh review. Plus, I did reviews of any new CDs I’d get along the way, some from bands that are personal friends. My count there has gone up to 300, so far.
OTHER PRODUCTS
This category is a little trickier. It’s reserved mainly for music equipment, software and telescope gear. The vast majority is restricted to what Amazon sells. In fact, it was because of a less than stellar review I did of a high-end telescope eyepiece that I learned of an amateur astronomy forum called Cloudy Nights. I received hate mail and a thread on Cloudy Nights was started about me because of my “less than stellar” review of that eyepiece.
Once I became entrenched in Cloudy Nights, I was able to do more detailed reviews of telescope equipment, along with photos, so all my Amazon reviews doubled on to CN, but in more detail.
In total, I only have 31 product reviews and in a separate category, I have 26 computer game reviews.
WHAT SHOULD A REVIEW SAY?
There’s a certain fake reviewer which I’ve alluded to in previous articles. First off, she gives a blanket four or five star rating. Second, she copies the back blurb of the book, and that’s her review. She has something like 25,000+ reviews on Amazon and I believe is a paid reviewer. I have my doubts if she has any legitimate reviews out there and if she ever reads any of the books she puts her name to. Folks, that’s not a review.
The whole purpose of a review is to give your honest opinion of the product, whatever it is. That’s it.
However…
- The review should be grammatically correct.
- It should make sense.
- It should actually say something and why.
It should not…
- Personally slam the author.
- Trash the story without reason.
- Just tell the plot with no opinion.
- Gripe about the formatting of the e-book, or issues with it, or the pricing of the e-book.
The review should be about the story.
HOW LONG SHOULD IT BE?
It should be long enough to get your point across, but not so long that people skip over it. On the other hand, if it’s one sentence, people will tend to skip over it because that tells some of us you don’t have much to say, so why bother.
If it takes up the entire screen, you like to ramble and don’t know how to get to the point.
When I see a super-long review, I’ll read the first paragraph, maybe, to see what the reviewer has to say. If their writing style catches my interest, I may go on, but more than likely, I’ll stop right there.
The reviews I choose to read are grammatically correct, usually a couple of paragraphs, or maybe more but with short paragraphs, and each one gets to the point.
My reviews tend to be one to four paragraphs. I critique the story, the grammar, the point of view and the readability. I almost never reveal the plot, except in very vague terms. The only time I reveal the plot is if it has a sucky ending.
So, if you want to be a super reviewer like me, get to it!
Happy writing!
WHEN SOMEONE ASKS YOU TO READ A BADLY WRITTEN MANUSCRIPT
This article was inspired by another member of my writer’s group who had just this issue which she posted on Facebook. Her cousin gave her a very intriguing plot for a story but when she received the actual manuscript, the writing was awful and she couldn’t get through the first few pages.
If someone approaches you with a sizzling idea for a book, then presents you with the manuscript, only for you to read the first few pages and cringe, what are you to do?
DON’T GIVE IN TO FIRST TEMPTATIONS
Many of us, unless we’re innately diplomatic, have a tendency to speak our minds. The first words out of our mouth might be, “This sucks.” Or “This is absolutely awful.” Or “Why did you write this?” The list goes on.
Some of you might even get mad and do worse.
What’s that old saying? You get more with sugar than vinegar?
NO BLOOD ON THE FLOOR
The philosophy of our writer’s group, and one I strictly adhere to in my personal life is No blood on the floor. When someone is doing something wrong, there’s no need to rub their noses in it. There’s no need to make them feel bad about it. The whole point of asking for an opinion should be to give them guidance, not slam them and tell them they are the lowest of the low or to give them fake kudos to stroke their ego! Neither will do them any good.
IF YOU CAN’T BE TACTFUL, DON’T SAY A THING
If you’re the type of person that can’t hold back, if you’re the type of person that has to say what you think regardless of anyone else’s feelings, I suggest you don’t say a thing. You really have no place critiquing anything.
A critique should be constructive, not destructive.
Do I mean lie and candy coat something? Not at all! However, there’s a big difference between truthfulness and cruelty. Saying “This writing sucks” instead of saying “This writing needs work” means you have no tact and if you can’t tell the difference, you need to shut the hell up. That’s what I’m talking about.
Another example is getting impatient and disgusted while taking about the writing. “I can’t believe you wrote this that way.” Or “How can you say this?” Or “How can you write something so lame?”
Snarky or impatient putdowns are destructive.
CONTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Like I said, you get more with sugar than vinegar. You’ll never get anywhere when you browbeat or put someone down.
The best way is to approach it in a positive way. “Your story has a lot of potential, but the structure needs some work.” Or “The beginning needs to start with a bang.” Or “The writing is a bit passive. You need to make it more active.” Or “The story needs to start here and move this part further down.”
These are all constructive phrases that don’t put a negative spin on the writing or the preson. If the writer still takes it as negative, they either need to toughen up or they have too thin a skin to be writing in the first place. Maybe they need a reality check in this writing passion.
SOME PEOPLE JUST WON’T GET IT
Some writers will never get it. Face it. You can instruct and advise them all day long and they’ll never get it. Some writer’s will truck right along and never change a thing and always wonder why they can never get published until they self-publish and end up with a garage full of books. Others will chug along and completely depend on a paid editor to clean up their mess.
The good ones will actually listen and learn, hone their chops and get better with time. The job of their critiquers and editors will get easier as the writing gets better.
SUMMARY
There is the possibility that the awful writing is perfectly fine, but it’s just something you hate to read. There are plenty of published novels I find unreadable. However, a likely case is that if you get the offer, it will be a first-time writer who has plunged into their premiere novel. More than likely, they’ll appreciate any positive suggestions you can give them.
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 