Writing by the Rules

My crit buddy and I like to rant occasionally in emails to one another how we abhor the rules of the writing craft. Stifling our creativity - in our opinion - these rules only exist to make writing that much harder. More hoops to jump through to get this agent's attention/representation. It's aggravating, for sure, but then I have to remind myself that if the end goal is publication - seeking an outlet for all these ideas in my head that goes beyond taking up space on my desktop - then there has to be some conformation to these rules.

The rule I probably detest the absolute most is using adverbs sparsely (is that ironic, or what?). In English classes in high school - and even college - professors taught that your ability to weild adverbs and adjectives was like the icing on the cake, what could set your writing above par from your peers. Now, in publishing land, this rule is resolute: few IF ANY -ly adverbs in your writing! My fantastic crit partner catches them all for me, and I dutifully go back to my original and hite DELETE, but I get mad doing so (not at you, Katie!).

I think, what is wrong with that adverb there? It succinctly (great adverb there) tells the reader in just one word how my character is feeling or acting. But therein lies the problem, I suppose. Adverbs TELL. They describe, of course, by overtly telling. And authors are suppose to SHOW. This was a concept I hadn't thought about until reading books on the writing craft. So now I think twice about the Tom Swiftie or adverb (I've posted on this before, I'm remembering...but I told you...ranting helps get through the frustration) and try to find some creative way to express the same idea. And yes, using more words.

By the way, I've italicized all the adverbs, to reiterate how exceedingly much I love using them.

Are there any rules that just irritate you to no end? (Oooh...that reminds me about the no cliche rule! That deserves an entire post, though.) If so, tell me about it.

Tom Swifties

I've learned something from one of my crit partners that I had absolutely never heard of before, but makes total sense. Tom Swifties. To quote the Random House Dictionary:

Tom Swiftie, a play on words that follows an unvarying pattern and relies for its humor on a punning relationship between the way an adverb describes a speaker and at the same time refers significantly to the import of the speaker's statement, as in: "I know who turned off the lights," Tom hinted darkly.

Not that I was intentionally trying to make a play on words with my speech tags in my novel. I thought I would broadening the description of what was being said. But in truth, my writing was strong enough without it. Almost every single time, the -ly adverb was completely unneeded.

But not only did I do this in speech tags, I did it EVERYWHERE. Just -ly adverbs all over the place, serving no purpose but to clog up the writing.

My favorite examples from my own writing (Katie, you should love this!):

Anna laughed loudly, this time causing others to look our way. "Loudly" isn't needed at all.

His brow furrowed slightly. As opposed to furrowed fully?

"Must be a story behind a declaration like that," Anna said conversationally. How does one converse conversationally? I laughed hard at this one. This might actually fit the definition of a Tom Swiftie.

She sat down quickly, her cheeks flushing gently. Joshua tried unsuccessfully to hide his grin before turning around. A gentle flush. I was trying to go for a flush that wasn't beet red all over..just a tinge on the cheeks. Why didn't I just write that instead? She sat down in a rush, a pink tinge on her cheeks. (I just went back and changed that, by the way.)

So I'm going to work on tightening up my prose and dialogue. I'm really pleased with my first 15 pages of this story I'm going to turn in on for the Genesis competition now. No less than seven people have edited/critiqued it and I feel that it's in good shape now.

So thanks to all who had a part in this! I'm not going to say that I've written the last Tom Swifty that I ever will, but they will less prominent from here on out.

Who knew?