Twelve Techniques to Improve Your Writing through Editing

(AKA: Zephyr Rants About How to Write Prose and Edit That Prose, Plus Some Other Stuff)

Get ready, because this one's a biggun. It's as long as the title. "Techniques" is something of a misnomer, as I'm unsure how many of these can actually be called "techniques", but oh well.

So the best writers can write a perfect first draft, right? No, not really. They write quite good first drafts, of course, but they make grammar, word use, and punctuation mistakes same as the rest of us. The best writers are actually great at editing their own writing.

Editing is the unsung hero of writing - mostly because the average reader will have no idea whether a story was edited. Even I, an experienced writer who's studied many stories and is currently spouting quasi-intelligent lectures at you poor, poor SFNW members, have trouble determining whether a story's been edited.

But one thing's for sure: whenever you're reading a published novel, you aren't reading a first draft.

In fact, most authors edit their full manuscript something like 6 or 7 times. So if they can take the time to give their at least 60-80,000 word stories 6 editing passes, you have no excuse to not give your 3k word one-shot at least a couple.

I cannot overstate the importance of editing. A year and a half ago I wrote my first pony fanfic. (Yes, I write pony fanfics even though I've never posted anything.) It was also the first story I ever edited. I spent some time editing the chapters, but more importantly I took a few hours editing the first few pages as best I could. Now just earlier this week I went back to it to give a friend of mine an example of how horrible my first pony fanfic was, and I was shocked by the quality. There were some obvious mistakes but otherwise it was quite good. I estimated that it was about as good as the first drafts I was writing half a year ago.

So just a few editing passes improved the writing as though I had been a year more experienced.

But editing can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, and that's where I come in. I'm not going to tell you about things you should already know like editing to make the sentences flow better. No, in this lecture I'm going to tell you what to look for that needs changing, and how to fix it. This is my first lecture that won't be just the basics, as I know many experienced writers could stand to learn from a few of these.

Now, these are all techniques to consider while writing the first draft, but there's a reason I'm calling them techniques for editing. If you make one of the mistakes I mention while writing the first draft, don't worry about it. Half of editing is fixing mistakes. And you can always go back later. Here's a simple fact that not terribly many people know: the quality of the writing in the first draft doesn't matter. The quality of the prose is going to change radically if you do even a few editing passes, so it doesn't matter how good it is before then. That's why I'm calling these editing techniques. Because prose quality only matters after you're done editing, not before.

Let's begin.

1. After you finish writing your first draft, don't edit it immediately. Wait at minimum a couple days, preferably more than a week.

So the first technique is arguably the most important, and it's by far the easiest! I'm not sure why this is the case. Many authors have condemned editing the first draft right after finishing, and I'm one of them. Having had experienced both with editing the first draft the same day I finished, and editing a first draft a month after finishing, I can say this rule is solid.

As I said, I really don't know exactly why this is the case, but not only do you edit your story far better if you wait a while first, but it's also easier. AS you gain more experience, this lessens somewhat. Still, wait before you edit. Otherwise your time will have been better spent writing another chapter.

2. Eradicate unnecessary words.

The thing about unnecessary words that make them so evil is that they don't just serve no purpose, they hurt the story. Unnecessary words are like weeds in a flower garden: they're distracting, not terribly good to look at, and they choke everything around them. Learning to recognize when words are unnecessary is a long process - you'll still be working on it years from now - but here are some to look for.

I mentioned in another lecture that the "____ said" tags are often unnecessary in a one-on-one conversation. If one character has a unique way of speaking, you can also omit most of their said tags. "Suddenly" is a word that can often be removed. The flow of time is automatic in the reader's mind, so if in the middle of a casual conversation a gunshot rings out, it'll seem sudden to the reader whether or not you use "suddenly". Most adjectives and adverbs are also unnecessary, but that's for later.

Other words that should often be removed include: like, somewhat, then, was, really, very, also, now, some, and just (and all sorts of other words that became a part of my writing voice so I can't get rid of them).

But it's important to remember that if removing one of these words makes a sentence sound bad or just off, keep them. Most of the time the word was a part of making the sentence grammatically correct, but if you're more experienced it might be a sign of your writing voice developing.

Which words are unnecessary varies drastically depending on the context, sentence structure, and the writer's style, so I can't give much general advice here. Just go through your own writing, figure out which words aren't adding to the story, and annihilate them.

3. Seek and destroy adjectives and adverbs.

Take a gander at this passage:

The lavender unicorn walked casually over to the light-colored bakery. She immediately opened the wooden door and slowly moved inside. She was immediately met face-to-face with the blue eyes of a pink earth pony just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight!" said the pink pony loudly and happily. "Here to buy more fruity pastries?"

There are two serious problems with this passage, but one of them will be covered in the next technique. The more dire of the two is the adjectives and adverbs. Literally a grand total of one of them is actually necessary. But these adjectives aren't just unnecessary, they're weak. They add nothing, and anything that adds nothing to your story must meet Executioner Backspace by the gallows at dawn.

The unicorn walked over to the bakery. She opened the door and moved inside. She was met face-to-face by the blue eyes of an earth pony just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight!" said the pony. "Here to buy more pastries?"

Significantly better, but still mediocre at best. With the next technique I'll teach you to make it good. First, though, is another thing. Sometimes your adjectives and adverbs are necessary to convey a particular message. In this case, you have two options: make the noun or verb more specific (more on that later), or use a stronger adjective/adverb. Combining this with the other method of fixing excessive adjectives and adverbs looks like this:

The unicorn walked casually to the pastel-colored bakery. She opened the oak door and hesitantly moved inside. She was met face-to-face with the azure eyes of a pink pony just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight! Here to buy more peach pastries?"

Bonus points if you noticed I removed words in accordance with technique 2. One thing you have to be careful to not do is use many strong adjectives and adverbs you had to look up in a dictionary first. Your readers probably won't know what they mean, and no matter how much they love your story, they're not going to stop reading and go look them up. One or two adjectives or adverbs per paragraph the reader doesn't know the meaning of are fine, even beneficial sometimes, but any more and you'll be nose-diving into purple prose territory.

Speaking of strong words, it's time for the next technique.

4. Be specific!

This is it, the one technique many, many experience writers don't use. They usually know it to some extent, but I see people failing to do this all the time when I do story reviews and while reading fanfics casually. So as promised, let's go back to the passage from 3. But first, we need to figure out why it's weak. I already know the answer since I intentionally wrote it that way, and you currently can't say anything to me, so I'll just give you the answer: not only were the adjectives and adverbs weak, but the verbs and nouns themselves were too.

Twilight trotted to Sugarcube Corner. She eased the door open and hesitantly slipped inside. She was met face-to-face with the azure eyes of Pinkie Pie just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight! Here to buy more peach tarts?"

Instead of "unicorn", "bakery", and "pink earth pony", I used specific names. Names resound more with a reader, but you don't want to always refer to a character by their name. About once at the start of a paragraph and maybe again near the end is how much you want to do this. Pronouns are how you'll usually refer to them otherwise. "Tarts" is far stronger and more specific, as are "trotted", "eased", and "entered". A while back, I was teaching a friend this and the example I made by changing a sentence of his writing is one I still like to use today. Here it is:

Less than ten minutes later the SWAT team had arrived, guns aimed at everything alive in the area.

My edited version, sans the sentence restructuring, was:

Eight minutes later SWAT had their Koch MP5's and Beneli M1's trained on every living thing on the roadside.

"Less than ten minutes later" is a very vague period of time: 0-9 minutes, specifically. Sure, it implies about 7-9 minutes, but that's still vague. "Eight minutes later" is not only more specific, but shorter too. "Koch MP5's and Beneli M1's" are two of the specific guns SWAT uses, which gives the sentence more weight. In this context, with the stronger verb "trained", even though I didn't explicitly say so, the reader automatically know that they're guns.

Not only does using more specific verbs and nouns often eliminate the need for an adverb or adjective and make the writing have more impact, if you use it right it also makes you look more professional - and fanfic readers absolutely love a professional-looking story, or so I've heard.

But an important warning: you should almost never combine a very specific noun or verb with a powerful adjective or adverb. It's generally purple prose, and will mostly just make it look like you're trying to show off if you use it often. Combining a specific noun/verb with a strong adjective/adverb is good if use sparingly, but it always has to be necessary for the message of the prose. Calling a sword a "jagged falchion" is fine, but don't say that Twilight "traipsed masterfully".

5. Use active verbs instead of passive ones.

This is another common mistake I see while reviewing. Now, this doesn't mean changing which verb you use (99% of the time, anyways), what it does mean is changing the subject of the sentence. Which I know is hard to grasp without an example.

Passive: Twilight was shoved off the cliff by Rarity.

Active: Rarity shoved Twilight off the cliff.

Active verbs are when the subject is the one acting. Passive verbs are when the subject is being acted upon. Active verbs are always stronger than passive ones. Okay, okay, yes, they are only stronger 99.9% of the time. There are some cases where the opposite is true.

Twilight Sparkle is considered to be the most gifted magical prodigy in all of history.

There was something wrong in my house. I could feel it in the air. I was being watched.

In the first sentence the lack of a specific group of people considering Twilight a prodigy (which, if it was an active verb, you'd have to include) implies a more unanimous public opinion on her than likely exists, which makes the sentence stronger.

In the second sentence, the passive verb adds to the eeriness of the sentence. Not only do I not know what's watching me, I also know so little I can't say whether it's a he, she, they, or it, and so can't use the active form.

And even though active verbs are stronger, that doesn't necessarily mean you should only use them. In the passage from before, I said "She was met face-to-face with the azure eyes of Pinkie Pie just an inch away" because the story was distinctly from Twilight's POV, and Pinkie's appearance was sudden. (I almost chose to not change "pink earth pony" to "Pinkie Pie" because of this. It would take Twilight a second to realize who it is, so it could be good for the reader to, too.) There are many cases where the passive is better than the active, but they're all situational. If you find yourself unsure whether to use active or passive, use active.

6. Use short and long sentences to give your paragraphs variety.

Variety is the spice of life, as they say. Have you ever read a story written by a long-winded writer? The kind where you read a 12-line paragraph, look back, and find out it was actually all just two sentences? These kind of writers (I'm one), even if they're quite good, need to apply this technique most of all.

If after you read the 12-line paragraph the first sentence in the next one was "Twilight sat." you might even feel relieved. But the same is true of a terse writer. A long sentence now and then instead of a single-clause string will add the same variety. This is the second easiest technique to use, but you should notice a good improvement in how your story sounds when you apply it.

7. Avoid using the "-ing" tense.

Holy horseapples, this is another mistake I see all the time. The thing about the "-ing" verb tense is that it's basically a combination of past and present tense which, you guessed it, makes it vague. It also takes an extra syllable to read. (And you often have to add "was" before the verb, making the sentence even longer.) If you don't get why using this tense often is bad, let me show you.

I was walking down the street when I heard flapping and after that I was turning my eyes to look. Then I was watching as the blue-jay was flying away until it finished disappearing behind the trees.

If that was painful to read, don't worry, it was also painful to write. Usually you'll want to change these verbs to past tense whenever you spot them. But this passage also serves as an example of when to use the "-ing" tense. The first verb, "walking", is great in this tense because it connects that verb with hearing the flaps - two actions that, logically, should be happening simultaneously. Like with passive verbs, there are a lot of cases like this, but they're mostly situational so it'd take too long to list them.

8. Speak in the positive, not in the negative.

And so we come to one that I need to apply more myself. This one's pretty basic, but it's easy to forget. Don't get why you should speak in the positive? Here's why:

When you're asked what color a flower is, and it's yellow, you're not going to say, "It's not orange, green, black, white, purple, blue, or red." You'll say, "It's yellow."

So, to reference the site that I learned to write from a long time ago:

Bad: Twilight did not like Rainbow Dash.
Good: Twilight disliked Rainbow Dash.
Or Even Better: Twilight hated Rainbow Dash.

People don't like to hear what something isn't. Simply saying what it is instead of what it's not is better and generally shorter. And as I showed, combining this with using specific verbs and nouns makes it even better. But don't think this only applies to descriptions, because it applies to everything. Yes, even dialogue.

Even something as simple as:

Twilight didn't say anything.

Would be better as:

Twilight said nothing.

The hardest thing with this technique is figuring out how to change your sentences from negative to positive. Because sometimes you simply can't without changing the meaning. You may have noticed by now that all of these, except 1, have exceptions, and this one has the most of all of them. Sometimes it's just better to use the negative, such as if Twilight is told to move, you wouldn't want to say "Twilight stayed where she was." and instead it'd be better to say "Twilight didn't move." If changing a sentence from negative to positive makes it sound stupid, keep it negative.

9. Add extra detail to your settings.

To those of you who hate talk of tweaking prose, you'll start to enjoy this lecture more from this point on. The thing about settings - especially ones in towns and cities - is that no one setting is the same as another. You might remember from school that there's always that classroom. You know, the one that was always burning during winter and frigid during summer? That's a detail you noticed about it.

This is yet another common mistake novice writers make. They don't describe the scene enough. (And often the characters, for that matter. I see a lot of people never describing characters because "everyone already knows what they look like". Yeah, well, I actually don't know exactly how Lyra looks, so if you don't describe her in your story I'm not going to know. Not everybody knows what everypony looks like, and even if they did, a description can include a minor design detail that most people don't know about. Not describing them just makes you look lazy, and you risk weakening your readers' understanding of your story. Always describe your characters. Period.) I reviewed a story a long time ago, before I joined SFNW, before the group was founded, in fact, where the main characters went into a burned-down forest. While reading, I noticed a massive error the author made: he only described the setting as a burned-down forest. There was no detail at all. Nothing about ash sticking to the hooves of ponies, the smell of smoke and charred bark, blackened trees that looked like they were clawing at the sky, or the wind going where it usually couldn't because the trees blocked it.

This is shockingly easy to forget to do, even when you have years of writing under your belt (I'm speaking from experience). So it's always a good idea to go back and make sure you described your scenes well.

One thing people who don't have the problem from two paragraphs ago often seem to forget, though, is that detail in settings is a whole lot more than how the place looks. I am guilty of this myself, though generally only in the first draft stage. Smell is the strongest sense for triggering memory. I don't know if it's happened to all of you, but I've been to a place that smells a specific way several times, and then one day I randomly smelled the same scent and was reminded of the place even though I hadn't been there in years. Also, what does the place sound like? If it's a public park on a Saturday, there's going to be a lot of noises around.

The primary sense you'll use while describing a setting is still sight, though. But you should include at least one other sense in your description. Generally the other sense will be sound or smell, but the other two can work just as well. For instance, the character sitting on a couch only to find out it's lumpy and seems to be missing half its stuffing.

But it can be much larger than small details. Such as the fact that Twilight lives in a tree.

Let's say that a human main character meets a new person. They hit it off well and go back to the person's house. In their kitchen, cooking appliances, never unboxed, are stacked in the corner - McDonald's bags are strewn across the counters in various states of crumpled-upness. Talk about using detail! Not only do these things make the setting more vivid, but they also suggest things about the new person. This is how powerful detail in setting is.

Details make a setting organic. It gives locations character, and, as I showed, can even be used as a means of characterization. I can't give concrete advice here except make it unique, make it interesting.

10. More character thoughts and emotions = more interested reader!

I don't mean thoughts that are word-for-word what the character is thinking. I'm talking about thoughts through narration. If you don't know how to do that, here's what it looks like:

Rainbow Dash stumbled into her cloud house, forgetting to close the door. She couldn't believe it. It - just - what - Applejack felt the same way she did!

This is essentially telling the reader what the character is thinking through narration, without actually saying that it's what the character is thinking. Note: you can only do this for the character whose perspective the story is from. One main mistake many new writers make is not including character thoughts and feelings in response to things happening that should clearly elicit a response. If a character gets bucked in the face, they're going to have an emotional response in addition to a physical one.

Let's go back yet again to the passage from earlier.

Twilight trotted calmly to Sugarcube Corner. Her tranquil demeanor was a lie. She was nervous. Oh, this was so embarrassing. Just yesterday she'd gone to the bakery to buy peach tarts, and now she was going there to buy more again today as she had two days ago and the day before that. She'd see Pinkie, and the party pony would ask her that same question: here to buy more peach tarts?

When she arrived, she eased the door open and hesitantly slipped inside. She was met by the azure eyes of Pinkie Pie just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight! Here to buy more peach tarts?"

She despised that question.

(While writing this part, I decided that I didn't really like the bit that said, "met face-to-face with" so I changed it. I'm not going to go back and change all the previous ones, though. Why? Because they don't matter. Only the finished product matters. Always remember this while writing the first draft.)

There was no conflict before. There were traces of it that I hinted at with the way she opened the door and Pinkie's words, but without the thoughts and feelings it lacked weight. Since this is the last time I'll be altering the passage, let's compare the finished product to the original one.

The lavender unicorn walked casually over to the light-colored bakery. She immediately opened the wooden door and slowly moved inside. She was immediately met face-to-face with the blue eyes of a pink earth pony just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight!" said the pink pony loudly and happily. "Here to buy more fruity pastries?"

Twilight trotted calmly to Sugarcube Corner. Her tranquil demeanor was a lie. She was nervous. Oh, this was so embarrassing. Just yesterday she'd gone to the bakery to buy peach tarts, and now she was going there to buy more again today, same as she had two days ago and the day before that. She'd see Pinkie, and the party pony would ask her that same question: here to buy more peach tarts?

When she arrived, she eased the door open and hesitantly slipped inside. She was met by the azure eyes of Pinkie Pie just an inch away.

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight! Here to buy more peach tarts?"

She despised that question.

When you're editing your own writing, generally the difference won't be as drastic as that, but it will be quite noticeable.

11. Don't begin sentences with adverbs. (Adjectives are usually fine.) Your default beginning to a sentence should be to establish the subject or the time frame.

This one isn't as common, but it's still something to watch for. I'll make this one short since it's simple.

Tentatively, Twilight touched her forehead with a hoof after the saw-blade barely missed her.

I'm not sure how well examples will show this, but here's the better version:

After the saw-blade barely missed her, Twilight tentatively touched her forehead with a hoof.

That's all there is to this one. Just don't do it. I've only seen a few cases where it actually worked, and those were by writers who are decidedly not new to the craft.

12. Finally, read your story out loud to hear how it would sound as a person speaking it.

Reading your story out loud forces you to slow down and listen to the way it sounds. If any of the wording is off, you're more likely to notice this way. Listen to the way your narration sounds as you do this.

Does it all sound like the same person speaking?
Do some sentences seem to take forever to get out?
Do any words sound out of place?

All of these are things to consider while you're editing. This is especially useful if you're using one of the Mane Six as a character, but in a different way. Go watch an episode of the show again, paying attention to the way that character sounds as they talk and ask yourself whether they sound that way in your writing.

And that's all of the techniques I've got to share for now. (Well, technically, two more got cut, but those are being saved for later.) If editing sounds like a lot of difficult work, that's because it is. But only if you try to go into advanced stuff. Most of the things I went over here are things to watch for, things that are on the simpler side, but many still forget. Sure, it's a lot of work and time, but that's writing.

Writing is so rewarding because it takes so long. This lecture took me about 10 hours in total to write and proofread, and it ended up being over 4,500 words, but I don't regret writing it because I wish someone had been around to tell me these things when I was new to writing. You have to learn and study and practice, and it can seem pretty intimidating at times. But the very most important, critical, dire thing to do is just keep writing. I love editing because if you do it right, your story's quality will only improve. It's much harder to screw up majorly, and you don't have to be as creative - you can just focus on polishing everything to a diamond shine. As I say, every word you write is one step closer to being great. It's just hard to see it that way at times. And it's especially true of editing.

I'll talk to you all again next time.

-Zephyr

To an average guy that's still in school, this would be considered long and boring (from my speculation). To me this is the most golden Iectue I had all week! I admire it like a giant golden statue of Celestia, but with Luna beside it! I swallowed every word, and I wish to drown in it. It's just that good.

I couldn't agree anymore with that last bolded paragraph. Probably a few years from, I would be thanking you for your words like some god. What's even more new to me is that I now truly understand why authors respect their editors so much.

I find it amusing of how I'm much more willing to learn in this school rather than actual school. And it's a freakin Saturday!

1001922

It's funny, isn't it? In school, English usually bored me to death, but if someone starts talking about the intricacies of how to make descriptions more interesting, such as how details that move are better, suddenly I'm all-ears. There's a lot of advice and rules to absorb into your mind, but once you get better, you'll realize that almost all rules in writing are meant to be broken once you're good enough.

Editing isn't quite as hard later on. I mostly edit according to what sounds right and what doesn't, as though I've developed an ear for correct word use and grammar. Mostly this lecture wasn't about making your writing great, but readable. Editing is the unsung hero of writing because no first draft is without issue, and you have to make it readable first. And a lot of people don't realize that, frankly, it doesn't matter how well-crafted everything else is if the prose is hard to read and understand.

It will always take a long time, though, but it's worth the effort. If you don't edit all you're doing is handicapping yourself.

I almost half believe that I wrote this lecture just so I could stop having to repeat myself while writing story reviews, and instead could just link to this lecture and say, "Read 2, 3, 4, and 7."

Okay, mods here in FIMfiction should start to give these kind of posts a "favourite" option just like fanfics, that way we could check them again without having to search the whole site.

That, and awesome lecture again! If mods aren't going to do so, then I should just put a Word document and copy/paste this!

(seriously though, I know some websites where you can actually favourite a post)

1002097

I'm glad you found it useful.

I've heard before that the art of writing is not in the writing itself but rather the rewriting.

The problem, then, with executing that art is that the true skill is knowing what to look for and how to fix it. Your techniques give some great ways to go about combing through a text in order to buff out blemishes and enrich the reading experience. The tips given here are presented with good examples that showcase their need and use.

I look forward to putting these into use in my own editing. With patience and the right sort of practice these can help a story truly shine!

Huh. Do people really unconsciously write in the passive tense and not in the active tense? Apparently that's one of the "big issues" with writing (or so say many of the books / articles I've read about writing), yet I can honestly say even when I was a kid it was never something I did. I've always written in the active sense--it just sounds stupid to write scenes any other way. Nobody says "I was smacked by my mother," people say, "my mom smacked me," lol. Odd...

Great advice, though. It made me happy when I realized, as I read through this, that I've already started to implement a lot of these techniques in my own writing over time, either due to experience or from all the help I received from reading lots of different books on the subject. I've come a long way since I first started writing fan fiction over two years ago, I suppose, and it's all thanks to godsends like you who take time out of their lives to write guides or advice

1033582

People really do use the passive quite a lot. They do, in fact, say things like "I was smacked by my mom yesterday." The passive refers to something more broad than most people think it does - all I mentioned in the lecture is the most common way for verbs to be passive. Another kind of passive sentence is like this: I was standing on a hill. There are a number of ways a sentence can be passive, but generally anything with "was" is passive.

In fact, you used the passive in your post. The line is "even when I was a kid it was never something I did." The active would be to say "even when I was a kid I never did it." (Also "even as a kid I never did it.") But there's nothing wrong with this. We use a lot of passive stuff because sometimes it just sounds better that way.

It can be something like this: I was watching the football game when I got hit by a flying bowling ball. You could say, "The flying bowling ball hit me as I watched the game." but the first version sounds more natural, especially because it follows chronological order. These are the kinds of things you'll run into while writing and editing: Strong vs. Natural. Generally natural is the better one to go with. Purple prose is a prime example of strong but unnatural.

As for whether people unconsciously write in the passive tense... No, not really. People unconsciously write in both the passive and active tense. Generally they'll mostly write in the active, but the passive will still be a big chunk of what they write. Later on, writers will write naturally in both the active and passive tense, but they'll greatly prefer the active even without thinking about it. They'll still use the passive when it sounds better, though.

Yes, this is wonderful!

I've been looking for a few tips on editing, on 'oiling' my prose.

1033582 Also worth noting: Nonfiction (especially academic) writing is normally in the passive voice. In fact, university professors will usually drill it into you that academic writing should be passive. You would say "the experiment was performed," not "I performed the experiment," because in science you are not supposed to matter, only the facts. So people who do/read a lot of science and history may find the passive voice more natural and common.

1001590 This is wonderful. I appreciate the hard work you poured into making this. Just reading this has gotten me in the writing mood.

1001590

In fact, most authors edit their full manuscript something like 6 or 7 times.

Wait, why do I edit my stories more than 50 times before I publish them then?

1001590 This was extremely helpful and for that I thank you. But I had a specific question, are there any special changes made to the editing process when co-writing with someone else?

5130531
I've never actually finished any story while co-authoring it. The main changes would vary from who you're working with. Some people will be impatient and want to get it posted immediately. Other people might be perfectionists, and will want to edit more. You might agree to have one person do the editing, while the other just looks over it afterwards to make sure there's no changes they violently disagree with. Or each edit your own parts of the story. Either way, the technique will be the same and it's just a matter of negotiating who does what and what changes are acceptable.

1001590 Largely good work, but there are a couple things that I wanted to address. Problematic things that are all too common of in writing; of which, many are direct consequences of the advice given here.

The first being tacit identification:

"Welcome to - oh, hi, Twilight! Here to buy more peach pastries?"

I know this wasn't a full example, or passage of a story, but implying a speaker is typically more difficult than noting a speaker. By not indicating a speaker, such as "asked the clerk" or "Pinkie Pie queried" there is the implication that identifying the speaker is wasted words that should be cut.

This is contrary to how our real life works, as we identify a speaker every time they speak; either by observing them speak, or by the sound of their voice. This is far more difficult to capture with just the mannerisms they use. Secondly, it implies the manner in which the line is said (the said tag selected), is also irrelevant, or self-evident, when the words don't carry that context. So much of what is said is greatly dependent on the way in which it is said, to give it context and meaning. Context and meaning that could very well be very important to the narrative, moreso than just the dialogue used to frame that context. If the line isn't important, then one must ask why it even appears in the story.

I know it's a little thing, and it's probably not what you meant to convey here, but that little thing means a lot and has ramifications that compound quite quickly when you have more than one line of dialogue go "unspoken" (meaning that it appears without a speaker). You'll note that this point from point 3, bleeds into point 4, as the same example is used again, and is not specifically illustrating either the speaker, or the manner in which the line is spoken even though that section is about being precise about these types of details.

Point 2: Active vs Passive.

Passive: Twilight was shoved off the cliff by Rarity.
Active: Rarity shoved Twilight off the cliff.

One thing I'd like to clarify is that the decision to use either the active, or passive voice should be representative of the theme of the story, and help bring that theme into the context of events. If, for example, the theme of the story is powerlessness, then you may be finding yourself wanting to use the passive voice more than the active voice. Thematic and tonal consistency of voice is as important to a story as tense consistency (past vs present, which is basically your whole point 7).

Point 3: The false dichotomy, and intentional ambiguity.

Bad: Twilight did not like Rainbow Dash.
Good: Twilight disliked Rainbow Dash.

In your point 8 you say to defer to speaking in the affirmative—affirming a character's stance, or some fact of the fictional world. Using a forced affirmative in circumstances that don't warrant it remove the ambiguity of a situation. There are plenty of circumstances that are unambiguous, to be sure, but there an equal number for which the alternatives are themselves unnecessary. Consider the example you gave in an alternative light.

Twilight did not like Rainbow Dash. She had no reason to.

or

Twilight didn't say anything. It wasn't her place to.

I could give an infinite number of examples but that wouldn't be very word efficient. Suffice to say the statement of the affirmative is not a mandatory, as we can use this 'negative space' to say something else about a character, situation, or object that a simple affirmation can't hope to capture. Though, this is generally dependent on the context of the negative, and its representation of a relevant theme.

In short, not everything is black and white, and it's good to reflect that in a story when necessary.

Point 4: Severely conflicting advice:

2. Eradicate unnecessary words.
9. Add extra detail to your settings.

Extra, is by definition, unnecessary. Perhaps you meant to convey the importance of succinctness in your point 2. If so, that did not come across as clearly as it could have. The simple irradiation of words that are unnecessary does not, itself, improve a story unless it is done with the purpose of improving the clarity of the message. That (the clarity of the message) is something that neither of these sections address. As they stand the conflict indicate that, if deference is given to one, the other is directly invalidated by it.

They are, in short, the statement of "simplify your story" and "add complexity". I would suggest revising your second point to emphasize the importance of clarity, if that's what you were going for, since you can apply "the simplification for the purpose of clarity" to the extra details added, without any conflict at all.

1002097 Your browser has the option to bookmark a page.

5032617 Probably because you and I are not as efficient as the professionals who look over other professional's drafts and tell them what to fix.

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I know this wasn't a full example, or passage of a story, but implying a speaker is typically more difficult than noting a speaker. By not indicating a speaker, such as "asked the clerk" or "Pinkie Pie queried" there is the implication that identifying the speaker is wasted words that should be cut.

That's exactly what it means. Saying ______ queried (by the way, you shouldn't be using "queried" because it's a textbook example of a said bookism--just say "asked") can be very necessary at times, but it doesn't really ever add anything besides context. These you would mainly want to use in scenes with more than two speakers. They'll still show up in scenes with two, or even one, characters, but they should be sparse, because again they only add context. And adding context only matters if it is currently lacking.

This is contrary to how our real life works, as we identify a speaker every time they speak; either by observing them speak, or by the sound of their voice. This is far more difficult to capture with just the mannerisms they use. Secondly, it implies the manner in which the line is said (the said tag selected), is also irrelevant, or self-evident, when the words don't carry that context. So much of what is said is greatly dependent on the way in which it is said, to give it context and meaning. Context and meaning that could very well be very important to the narrative, moreso than just the dialogue used to frame that context. If the line isn't important, then one must ask why it even appears in the story.

I think you're misunderstanding. See, the point isn't to not communicate those because it's wasted words. If you looked at my The Said Tags lecture, I specifically talked about this issue. What some people mistake is thinking that these things can only be shown through dialogue attribution tags, when they can very well be done without. For example, I don't need to say: "Are you bucking kidding me?!" Twilight yelled. The yelling is already shown by her word choice and the use of an exclamation mark, so here the little addition is unnecessary. If it isn't obvious that Twilight is the one speaking, you'd still need it for context's sake (as I mentioned above), but otherwise it's just wasting the reader's time. You're mistaking a lack of identification with identification being unnecessary. If the reader already knows who's speaking just from the dialogue alone, why would you restate it? It's a waste of words. Realism is no justification. Real life also doesn't generally follow pacing arcs. But I guarantee if you don't at least loosely follow the rules of fiction pacing, your story will fail. Realism is not the goal, even though sometimes it's useful in getting to that goal. Realism in regards to dialogue would mean including a bunch of unnatural pauses and um's and uh's in nearly every character's lines, because that's how we speak in real life.

Secondly, in the case that you needed to identify the person talking, you'd often be better off using beats. Beats are short bits of movement, expressions, or any other small description of the character that's talking. Generally these are placed before the dialogue so as to not come across as a reaction to it. For example:

Twilight slammed her hooves on the table. "Are you bucking kidding me?!"

In the event that it wasn't obvious she was the one speaking, you would go with this. Actions speak louder than words, as they say. The beat makes it extremely obvious that she's the one speaking (because her actions match her words), and slamming down her hooves and the word choice and the exclamation mark make her tone and volume level clear. Thus, the dialogue attribution tag of "Twilight yelled" is completely redundant. But still you should never think that a beat or a dialogue attribution tag is absolutely necessary. The Mane Six in MLP:FiM all have extremely distinct voices that are easily turned into written form. Like in this:

"Oh, um, I'm, uh, I'm sorry..."

Now, if you didn't know which characters were in the scene, this might be unclear. But if you know Fluttershy's there, then you automatically recognize it's her speaking. I don't need to state what you're already aware of.

Here are the things that can't be included in written dialogue: inflections (specific ways of saying parts of words), tone when saying a particular word besides emphasis, and non-obvious tone of voice. The first you would never try to get across. After all, that would take a paragraph for one sentence of dialogue. The second you would only talk about if it were important. And the third you would do in a dialogue attribution tag. But most of the time you won't have the second or third one. In cases you do, you would have narration, usually in the form of a dialogue attribution tag, saying how they'd spoken. This is too uncommon to really be a problem.

I could give an infinite number of examples but that wouldn't be very word efficient. Suffice to say the statement of the affirmative is not a mandatory, as we can use this 'negative space' to say something else about a character, situation, or object that a simple affirmation can't hope to capture. Though, this is generally dependent on the context of the negative, and its representation of a relevant theme.

I already said in my lecture that there are always some cases where the rules will not be true. I mean, in that same rule, I said.

You may have noticed by now that all of these, except 1, have exceptions, and this one has the most of all of them.

Please check that I did not specifically note the situation you're talking about before you criticize me on not including it.

Extra, is by definition, unnecessary. Perhaps you meant to convey the importance of succinctness in your point 2. If so, that did not come across as clearly as it could have. The simple irradiation of words that are unnecessary does not, itself, improve a story unless it is done with the purpose of improving the clarity of the message. That (the clarity of the message) is something that neither of these sections address. As they stand the conflict indicate that, if deference is given to one, the other is directly invalidated by it.

They are, in short, the statement of "simplify your story" and "add complexity". I would suggest revising your second point to emphasize the importance of clarity, if that's what you were going for, since you can apply "the simplification for the purpose of clarity" to the extra details added, without any conflict at all.

This is pure semantics. Again, you're conflating redundancy with non-required. Unnecessary words I called roughly "words that don't add anything." Extra detail in settings definitely adds something, and therefore are not included in this definition. Technically the two rules, in their current phrasing, directly contradict each other. But they're also a couple thousand words apart, so that's not really an issue. By the time you get to the second one, it's already well established that 2 is not saying to remove every single word that isn't absolutely required, and so there's no dissonance.

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If you looked at my The Said Tags lecture

It's not part of the lecture to which I am responding to, and voicing its existence doesn't validate the lack of said tags here.

What some people mistake is thinking that these things can only be shown through dialogue attribution tags

My point is entirely about the nonverbal aspect of communication, something that makes up over 80% of our daily communication, and by definition is not something that can occur in spoken dialogue. This is something that you've dismissively hand-waved as a "bookisim". The reason English has synonyms is because the the words—while related—still mean different things, and a person will never be wrong for picking the word whose definition exactly what they meant to covey.

you'd still need it for context's sake

I already addressed context in the statement you quoted directly, with the stipulation that it's (1) not always clear from the context, and (2) easy enough to remove the potential ambiguity.

. I don't need to state what you're already aware of.

Fundamentally misses the entire point of identifying the manner in which the line is stated.

redundancy with non-required. Unnecessary

These are three very different words, with very different definitions. Redundancy indicates that something has already been addressed and is being addressed again. Not required indicates something doesn't need to be addressed. Unnecessary indicates that something that was addressed, but shouldn't be.

For example: Addressing nonverbal communication, such as the manner in which a verbal line is delivered, should be "not required" but has proven to be "redundant" by virtue of the fact that you've continually indicated that it's "unnecessary". As for the point of extra detail, we define "purple prose" a term you cited directly as a form of (superfluous) extra detail.

You're literally saying, by virtue of the definitions of the words you're using, that "Extra detail is bad. Get rid of it." and then following up with "Extra detail is good. Put it in." It's very easy to see how this paradox may lead to confusion.

It's not part of the lecture to which I am responding to, and voicing its existence doesn't validate the lack of said tags here.

It is perfectly valid. It's essentially saying "You can find my argument on this subject here." I'm not going to take the time to restate something when I can just direct you to where I've already explained it.

My point is entirely about the nonverbal aspect of communication, something that makes up over 80% of our daily communication, and by definition is not something that can occur in spoken dialogue.

Then why are you talking about dialogue attribution tags? My little thing about beats was talking about that. "Twilight said" tells us nothing about the nonverbal communication because it's specifically describing the verbal communication.

Fundamentally misses the entire point of identifying the manner in which the line is stated.

No, it doesn't. Because the way in which the line was said was addressed by the actual dialogue. "Um" and "uh" give you the passive, quiet tone, as does the ellipses. It's completely redundant to identify how it was said because the reader already read it that way in their mind. This is the essence of show, don't tell.

These are three very different words, with very different definitions. Redundancy indicates that something has already been addressed and is being addressed again. Not required indicates something doesn't need to be addressed. Unnecessary indicates that something that was addressed, but shouldn't be.

For example: Addressing nonverbal communication, such as the manner in which a verbal line is delivered, should be "not required" but has proven to be "redundant" by virtue of the fact that you've continually indicated that it's "unnecessary". As for the point of extra detail, we define "purple prose" a term you cited directly as a form of (superfluous) extra detail.

You're literally saying, by virtue of the definitions of the words you're using, that "Extra detail is bad. Get rid of it." and then following up with "Extra detail is good. Put it in." It's very easy to see how this paradox may lead to confusion.

I will just direct you to what I said before:

Technically the two rules, in their current phrasing, directly contradict each other. But they're also a couple thousand words apart, so that's not really an issue. By the time you get to the second one, it's already well established that 2 is not saying to remove every single word that isn't absolutely required, and so there's no dissonance.

You're just arguing semantics. Within the lecture itself there is no dissonance because the way that these two do not contradict is established. And purple prose is far from entirely "extra detail." That's part of it, as if you spend a paragraph describing a chair that is in no way important, that is purple prose. But, in general, purple prose is excessively flowery or high-level prose. And every single professional editor that doesn't do the romance genre (where purple prose is basically the standard) hates it. Why? It serves as a barrier to entry. If you regularly don't know what words mean, you'll just be unable to read something. Like if I were to try to read a surgeon's report on the specifics of an operation. High-level prose bars you from a younger audience. Not a good idea. Also, it's just worse writing. Purple prose, while often more specific, draws attention to itself. And you aren't trying to impress the reader with your mastery of the English language, you're trying to tell a story. It gets in the way.

The reason English has synonyms is because the the words—while related—still mean different things, and a person will never be wrong for picking the word whose definition exactly what they meant to covey.

Most of what you've said has been varying degrees of wrong. The reason I didn't address point 2 in your original response is that while you painted the intentional use of passive voice instead of active voice as far less ambiguous than it actually is, you were fundamentally correct about using it to fit the tone (not the theme) of the story.

But this is just flat-out wrong. (The part after the comma, anyway.)

Let's consider this. How might using a word that has the definition you might want to convey be incorrect?

First of all, the reader just might not know what the word means. Like, I could say "her metacarpals were shattered" but even though it's an exact definition of the words I want to convey, that doesn't make it correct. Because the average reader won't know what metacarpals are. Instead you would use "finger bones" because even though it's not so specific, it still conveys what you mean. Obviously for "queried" this isn't a problem. That one has the next issue.

Secondly, larger words are distracting. If I say "The event was brobdingnagian" no one is going to notice the entire rest of that sentence. They're going to see "brobdingnagian" and go "What the hay does that mean?" In the best case scenario, they figure out what it means from context, or just skip over it and keep reading. In the worst case scenario, they'll go to look it up. They have now stopped reading your story. That's really bad. Your story has completely distracted them from itself and taken them out of the experience. But even in the best case, the reader isn't going to remember anything about that sentence. All they're going to remember is that it had the word "brobdingnagian." "Queried" is not so extreme but functionally has the same issue. Dialogue attribution tags shouldn't draw attention to themselves because they are insubstantial. They are not the content. They are describing the lens to view the actual content: the dialogue itself. "Asked" to the reader will have the same meaning as "queried", but with no risk of distracting them. Therefore, "asked" is superior.

Ask any professional editor or author and they will agree that what you said there was false.

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One thing I'd like to clarify is that the decision to use either the active, or passive voice should be representative of the theme of the story, and help bring that theme into the context of events. If, for example, the theme of the story is powerlessness, then you may be finding yourself wanting to use the passive voice more than the active voice.

Now personally, I say use the active voice every time. Sure passive can be nice if you want to make your hero seem powerless, but in the end any usage of the passive voice just takes proactivity out of the story. Interesting stories are full of interesting characters, and interesting characters are proactive. Nobody likes inactive characters. They're boring, they're dull, they let the world pass them by. If I wanted to make my protagonist seem powerless, then I wouldn't do it by giving her passive voice. Instead I would have the rest of the world use active voice upon her, which makes all the characters with power over her now far more interesting and engaging.

But that's just me, so.

My point is entirely about the nonverbal aspect of communication, something that makes up over 80% of our daily communication, and by definition is not something that can occur in spoken dialogue. This is something that you've dismissively hand-waved as a "bookisim".

Bruh. I just need to say real quick that "said bookisms" are like, an actual thing. It's a term used by professional authors and editors, and I'm like 90% sure that we have a lecture on that specific topic in here. See the thing is that dialogue tags or more or less invisible, and really that's how you want them. Nobody pays attention to them and that's good because then they're paying attention to the actual words being spoken.

If you take the time to break out your thesaurus and have Twilight "opine" or "ejaculate" or "vociferate" what could simply be "said" then suddenly your readers stop reading the dialogue. Now they're stuck on this weird word you've used and wondering what's going on with it. A far more fluid solution—one that I'm fond of myself—is to imply tone with actions, like in a silent film. Twilight can pump a hoof in the air, or slam it onto the table, or take a deep breath, there's so many better ways of conveying the tone and inflection that, as an added bonus, not only add details to the spoken words but also add actions to the scene.

I totally love implying speakers with beats and dialect. It is far more engrossing when you can see the character's move and interact with the world as they speak, instead of just being talking heads.

The reason English has synonyms is because the the words—while related—still mean different things, and a person will never be wrong for picking the word whose definition exactly what they meant to covey.

This is just purple prose. As far as I know nobody outside of romance really likes purple prose anymore. It's tiring to read and makes things harder to understand. I'm all for picking the right word for the right place but part of being the "right word" is being understandable and flowing smoothly.

You're literally saying, by virtue of the definitions of the words you're using, that "Extra detail is bad. Get rid of it." and then following up with "Extra detail is good. Put it in." It's very easy to see how this paradox may lead to confusion.

It seemed clear to me, but what he's saying is "Get rid of words that don't add anything," and "Add extra detail." The aren't mutually exclusive by any means, because words that don't add anything are just objectively a waste of everyone's time and coats your story in worthless fluff, while any words that add extra detail do actually add... yknow, extra detail.

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This is one of the best writing guides that I have ever seen before.

1001590

Excellent advice, there.

The two in particular that I've found most valuable to my self-editing process are numbers 1 and 12. Take time off, and read out loud.

Taking time off allows me to clear the story out of my head. The human mind has a remarkable ability to filter what it perceives, and fill in gaps or correct errors based on what it expects to see. That is always the case, and there is no substitute for having someone else experienced edit one's work; but one can do a great deal of effective self-editing by getting out of the writing mindset, "purging" expectations so to speak, and looking at the work with fresh eyes.

Reading out loud is critical to getting the best out of one's writing. To really feel the flow and rhythm of the work. Many of the greatest works of English literature were written this way, authors had salons, clubs, or various informal gatherings of friends and colleagues they could read their work to, or just get general feedback on. Tolkien and Lewis, for example had the Inklings; Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac had each other and the rest of the Beats; Dorothy Parker had the Algonquin Round Table; Gertrude Stein had her own salon in Paris frequented by some of the greatest English authors and French artists of their time. It's a great way to get a feel for the poetry of a language. A tool I've personally found valuable in this respect is a good Text-to-Speech program, so I can get the feel of having something read out loud. Not as good as having a real person read it to you, but still useful.