Manuscript Editing

I've started following authors and agents and accounts with writing tips on Twitter and I'm so glad that I did.

I saw mention the other day that descriptions of body language during dialogue is a big no-no for fiction writing. You know - sighing, staring, blinking, frowning, fidgeting, shrugging, breathing, rubbing chins, crinkling foreheads, biting lips, and the like. It doesn't add anything meaningful and a lot of people tend to skim over such descriptions anyway, focusing instead on the actual words being said.

When I write dialogue, it bothers me to leave that stuff out - the page looks too sparse with short paragraphs, quotation marks, and 'he said's/'she said's. But when I read a book, I prefer conversations that are quick and easy to follow.

I need to be thinking about the potential reader now. After going through two drafts and getting input from friends on content, characterization, and flow, my story is fleshed out enough that I can focus on this type of editing. So I've been going through my manuscript recently and "killing my darlings," as they say - finding all the places where I made those newbie mistakes and hitting the "delete" button a lot.

I copy-pasted my entire manuscript into a free text analyzer online to see what words/phrases I overused. In addition to those dialogue issues, I found that I'd made several other offenses.

Here are some of them:

1) First-grade adjectives like good, bad, happy, sad, warm, cold, young, old, kind, beautiful, afraid, large, small.

I'm trying not to use these words at all - nor any of their synonyms. I should be able to convey that emotion without coming out and saying that the character feels sad (or disappointed, or pessimistic, or destitute, or somber, or whatever).

2) Colors that are found in the Crayola-eight.

Why say "brown" or "red" when molasses, henna, bronze, cinnamon, raw hamburger, merlot, and even "recycled paper bag" paint such a clearer picture?

3) Unspecific nouns like people, someone, anyting, everything.

There has to a better way to say these. What kind of people are we talking about? Adults? Students? Babies? Firefighters? Southerners? Millenials? Dog lovers? Chain smokers? Feminists? Specificity is so much more interesting.

4) First-grade verbs like go, come, leave, keep, hit, give, eat, cry, bring, put, show, work.

Go/Come/Leave --> Advance, Proceed, Progress, Approach, Decamp, Withdraw
Give --> Contribute, Deliver, Donate, Provide, Dispense, Endow, Issue
Show --> Demonstrate, Exhibit, Reveal
etc.

5) Cliches and other extraneous/uncreative phrases.

- All on ... own: "The skin repaired itself all on its own."
- Fall to / down on / brought to ... knees: "He fell to his knees"; "She was brought to her knees."
- The world: "When the world is crashing down"; "His favorite possession in the world."
- What to do: "I can show you what to do."
- No idea why / Don't know why: "I have no idea why he's suspicious." "Why is he suspicious?"
- With a press of a button
- On the other hand
- On behalf of
- Without thinking / Without asking
- Particularly / In fact / The truth is / Actually
- Really / Very / Quite / Only / Just / Still - These are there for emphasis and are completely unnecessary.

I'm trying not to feel bad that I made such Writing 101 mistakes - and forgot to check for them before starting to send out query letters. Instead, I'm choosing to focus on the things I have to be proud of - that I started following the right accounts, that I listened to good advice, that I'm willing to go through my manuscript again to look for these things, that I'm not daunted by the task and eager to put forth the effort.

And thankfully, I only sent out four queries so far, so I have plenty more names to send my improved manuscript to once I finish making these changes.