writermag.com • The Writer | 21Over by the fence stood this kid with a balloon
high up on a string. He watched a pair of elephants
lumber about in their pen, trumpeting in the morn-
ing sun.
Note: I kept “high up on the string” since that
image is kind of lovely and poetic, though
“high” is frequently a dead-weight adjective,
along with the common culprits “big,” “little,”
“many,” and “pretty.”
CHARACTER FILTERSThis one comes courtesy of a recent lunch I had
with a pair of NY editors. After a round of jumbo
raspberry acai smoothies, they confided a grow-
ing displeasure in writers using filters for what a
character sees, hears, and feels, which makes
readers feel distant. Here’s an example of what
they mean.
Filtered: As soon as Iris charged through the
spacecraft hatch, she saw a cow’s ravaged body
swinging from a ceiling hook. She heard a low
moaning that she hoped wasn’t the poor cow.
Propped up against a wall, she noticed...a ray gun?
Nonfiltered: Iris charged through the spacecraft
hatch. A bloody cow moaned as it swung from a
ceiling hook. Against the wall lay a ray gun – a
freaking’ RAY GUN!
See the difference? The added benefit is that
the nonfiltered is often shorter, even if you kick
up the language/voice as I did here (I used 28
words versus the original 42). Let things unfold
on their own. Let readers experience it for them-
selves versus add in an extra layer of involvement
that, ironically, decreases the impact of the scene
as it adds bulk to your writing.
These editors – and others, I’m certain – will
appreciate it.
REPETITIONAll writers do this at some level, and it’s not
always in the best interest of the story. Let’s exam-
ine a few passages from a book pulled off my
shelf at random – Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger
Games – for some examples.
I had been in town, trying to trade some thread-
bare old baby clothes.
Possible fix: ...trade some threadbare old baby
clothes.
Although I had been to the Hob on several occa-
sions with my father, I was too frightened to ven-
ture into that rough, gritty place alone.
Possible fix: ...venture into that rough, gritty
place alone.
Ultimately, cutting away moments of repeti-
tion might not save you a ton of words, but it’ll
often help create a more specific, potent effect in
a reader. And it can improve the pace of the
story, too.
•••Here’s one final tip for getting your fiction to be
leaner in the right ways. Ghostwriter and drama-
turg Glenn Schudel explains that creating good
fiction is more than simply keeping sentences
short. “I love a long sentence, as long as it’s ele-
gant and deliberate,” he admits. “Yet it’s easy to
spot writers who have thought a lot about their
ideas but not put the same care into expressing
those ideas. The #1 tell? Baggy prose.”
To figure out where your prose is baggy/flabby,
he recommends two strategies. First, read it out
loud to a friend and pay attention to where they
get bored or confused. Adjust accordingly (cut
the flab!) in your editing process. The other thing
he suggests is to print out the story and examine
it sentence by sentence. “Each sentence should
have a goal,” he insists, “and any word that isn’t
helpful in getting you to that goal should be
changed or cut.”
I know that some writers understand this but
struggle with the changing and cutting part in a
kind of “I can’t kill my darlings!” moment. To help,
I tell them to imagine having to pay me $5 for
every word they leave on the page. Given that, do
they TRULY want to use “I really, really liked that
old maroon jacket!” without any changes? Is it a
$40-worthy sentence? Or maybe – just maybe –
there’s a way to save themselves some cash,
strengthen their story, and please readers all at the
same time.Ryan G. Van Cleave is the author of 20 books and a frequent
contributor to The Writer. Visit him at ryangvancleave.com &
OnlyPictureBooks.com.