I've hesitated coming into this discussion before today because in the beginning it didn't feel like writers/readers talking about writing. Now it does.
So, here are my two cents on several topics discussed.
1.
One easy way to make your writing seem more sophisticated is to avoid two stylistic constructions that are common to hack writers, namely:
Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him.
or
As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him.
Both the as construction and the -ing construction as used above are grammatically correct and express the action clearly and unambiguously. But notice that both of these constructins take a bit of action ("She pulled off her gloves") and tuck it away into a dependent clause (Pulling off her gloves..."). This tends to place some of your action at one remove from your reader, to make the actions seem incidental, unimportant. And so if you use these constructions often, you weaken your writing.
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They suggest that it would be better to write: "She pulled off her gloves and turned to face him."
The
In using a participle phrase or a subordinate clause to begin a sentence seems to be a way for the writer to avoid having a lot of "ands" in her writing. I know that I used to string a lot of clauses and phrases together before my beta-reader ( I think it was Jude in this case) pointed it out to me. Now I use more of those nasty
phrases and clauses. I think that they work if the writer understands how the particular phrase/clause is working and whether it is supposed to be less important than the main clause. If "pulling off her gloves" is important (because the character uses it as a delaying tactic or in order to show off her expensive rings, then it should be used preceding the action.
The important thing is to be aware of what we're writing and aware of what is implied by the constructions we use. During the editing process we need to make sure that we don't use the same construction over and over again, and that we don't use the same phrases over and over again.
2. Beverly wrote:
Okay, I have a really big problem with this suggestion. Having run across books where "said" is actually used like that, I know for a fact that after a while it begins to grate as I'm reading it. Proper or not, it reads as stilted dialogue if overused.
I believe (please not that everything I write here is what I believe and my opinion and not the only way anything should be done
) that, like everything in life(except for chocolate), moderation is the key. Dialogue tags is an interesting example. If the tags are too flowery or every tag has another adverb ("said haughtily", "remarked with venom", "whispered quietly--another can of worms here
) then it takes away from the actual dialogue.
I'm a firm believer that a good writer can let the reader know how a character is saying something by the situation the writer has created and the words the character speaks.
Also, the conventions of dialogue writing makes it possible to have two people speaking without indicating who is who after the initial tags. So, a writer only needs to write good dialogue.
3. And again from Beverly:
Now there's a writing problem that I'd love some suggestions on but to be honest I'm not sure if this concerns introspection or some form of narrative that I don't know the term for. Are narratives of memories the same thing as introspection? Where does one begin and where do they stop?
I believe that narratives of memory show what has happened in the past. I think that they should be handled in the same way that the character "shows" any kind of narrative using the same story-telling techniques.
The difficult part there is when the memory is something that has occurred in another story or in the series. It's basically filling in information that the reader should have, but may not for one reason or another. (Sometimes it's like a "previously on the Lois and Clark:"..) That's more difficult because the writer doesn't want to rewrite the story, just give a flavour of what is going on.
In one of the previous posts, someone mentioned a confidante as a way of allowing the character to share information and introspection. Not a bad idea, at all.
(Writing is a craft. We work at it, polish it, make it say what we want. There is no one way, no right way except that in the end, it needs to work. )
gerry
