New website

Hi everyone

With multiple interests should come multiple websites. Why not visit my new, much geekier home at www.carmen-fox.com? While there, feel free to say hi.

I'll continue both blogs from now on. Hope you enjoy.

Carmen

Overused Words - Personal Pronoun Pandemonium

Deep point of view has little to do with the personal pronouns you use. 'I' can dig just as deep as 'HE.' Equally, a generous scattering of personal pronouns cannot create deep POV. In fact, any such repetition is considered bad form.

Think of it this way:  your characters perceive the world filtered through their experiences. The wind, a smell, a glance. Whatever is happening to your characters is between them and the outside influence. Or in other words, it's about how the outside influence impacts your characters, not about how they impact the outside. If your character isn't the subject of his perceptions, why would he be the subject of the sentence?

What about making decisions? Surely this falls firmly in the personal pronoun domain, no? Once again, the issue is not the fact that your character has certain thoughts at all. The reader knows she's following your character's inner workings. No, past events, memories, or new information are the reasons your character is torn or confused, and they are the beacons that guide your character's mind from one spot to the next. I, HE or SHE have no place here.

Emotions, though. Don't tell me they are more important than the character. I'm not going to write, "Anger grabbed hold of me, and sadness ripped through me." Bleugh. Not happening!

Every time you feel sad or happy, you are the subject. But (and you knew there'd be one, didn't you?) the reader doesn't care how your character feels. The reader is not a shrink. So how does the author overcome the reader's attitude? By being sneaky. Show the readers the effects of these emotions. You know, the stomach loops, the raised hairs, the fast-beating heart. That'll draw them in.

So if not even emotions are the place for personal pronouns, what is?

Actions. When your character acts, he becomes the focus. This includes communication, both verbal and non-verbal. For cadence, try not to start each sentence with the same pronoun, but other than that, this is the perfect occasion to remind your reader your character is still in charge of his or her actions. This also implies we don't want hands acting independently or legs carrying you character away without his say-so.

As isn't uncommon in the urban fantasy genre, I write in first person point of view, and occasionally, a cluster of my sentences begins with 'I.' This glaring word echo sounds clunky, is highly noticeable, and reeks of amateur. The overuse of I is the first thing I change, even before my usual editing loops. 

In short, just don't overdo it. But if you do, there are relatively easy fixes for avoiding personal pronouns, even when it comes to action.

"I whipped around to her. Taking another step, I pondered her choice of words. Somewhere, I'd heard them before."

"My knee creaked from my sudden 180. 'Never felt more in synch with the world.' Her words had a familiar ring."

The key is to pick another word from the sentence and give it a spin.

"I nodded, certain I was going to die. And if I was going to die anyway, I might as well tell the truth."

"The certainty of my death turned my stomach. Through the nausea, a wispy voice egged me on to tell the truth, to clear my conscience and lighten the load on the off-chance my soul was headed upstairs to the big guy."

Once again, I picked another crucial word. In the first sentence, the word certain appealed to me. I might also have used the word 'die' to initiate a new sentence. 'Death was a certainty.' 'Death was staring me in the face, his eyes like two hollow pockets.' 'Death was beckoning my soul, but it was my resolve that came a-running.'

My examples may not be your taste, but they do prove the principle, I hope. So if you spot two of your sentences beginning with the same pronoun, why not have a play? Just don't take take it too far and substitute a clunky sentence for a perfectly fine specimen solely to avoid an 'I' or 'he/she.'

Editing - Commonly Overused Words

Two types of overused words trickle into my books with the regularity of my brother's toilet run. The first, fashion words. Say, the punchy sound of "crisp" takes my fancy, and before I know it, it pops up in nearly every chapter. The crisp white of a tablecloth. The crisp smell of the cold on clothes. The attentive reader will spot each occurrence. Not ideal.

Good news is, this type of overused word tends to be picked up during ordinary revision. Phew.

The second type is a lot sneakier. This group contains the blah words we use in abundance every day, the perfectly adequate, but not terribly exciting bunch that fills our books. In many cases, these words cause no major concern. If every sentence were to sparkle and glitter with bling words, the reader might be too dazzled to follow the plot. On the other hand, too many pedestrian expressions run the risk of sending your readership asnooze.

You should handle these specimens on a case-by-case basis, but first, you need to identify them.

Here a list of my overused words.

Pull
Push
Look
See
Feel
(My/her...) Own
Myself, herself...
Hear
Sound
Smell
Bitter
Very
Really
Actually
Large
Small
A little
A lot
Thought
Knew
Reach
Bring
Start
That
About
All
So
Just

There are many more, but we want to keep revision within bounds, don't we? One final note on the most common offender, not included above. The personal pronoun. In the first person POV, this would be 'I,' in third person 'he/she.' How can you avoid personal pronouns, you ask. Well, that will be the subject of a future post, so be sure to check back in soon.

Sounds And Smells - Vocabulary Builder

Fresh writing is hard. Fresh writing with a purpose even more so.

Are you as sick of smells assaulting noses and sounds tearing you from thoughts as I am? So I put on my stylish bakersboy thinking cap to conjure a number of, occasionally unusual, verbs that go well with fragrances and odors.

Drift
Waft
Jarr
Tickle
Climb
Swirl
Corkscrew
Dig
Follow
Pursue
Bombard
Hint
Intrude
Enclose
Wrap
Surround
Distract
Permeate
Isolate
Suggest
Puff
Blew
Burn
Feather
Float
Linger
Lick
Flood
Trickle
Jangle
Stomp
Dripdrop
Resonate
Murmur
Zing
Shatter
Sing
Soothe
Grab
Stuff
Ping
Claw
Bite
Tiptoe
Dance
Pounce
Blast
Thunder
Splash
Startle
Comfort
Crawl

Captivate And Dazzle Using The Senses

Don't just add sensory details. Use them with a purpose.

One way to allow the reader to sink deeper into the character's point of view is to cleverly layer sensory information. That's good, but the senses can do so much more. I like to give the individual senses specific tasks.

Sight is largely dependent on your eyes moving. Keep your gaze fixed on one point for too long, and you stop paying attention to the scene. So you constantly add new visuals to the chapter, hoping to provide a richer experience. Show don't tell, you are being told at every corner of your writing journey. Obedient as you are, you add more and more visual cues. A great start, but you need to dig ever deeper to fully immerse your readers.

In addition to everyday sounds, like doorbells or engines, and voice cues amidst dialogue, I use them to infuse a scene with suspense. Because in the absence of visual markers, sounds are creepy as hell. The innocent rustle of leaves in the trees can impart a sense of foreboding the associated visual can't. That's just my preference. Perhaps you'll find other uses.

Touch isn't used to its full potential in my writing, I admit. Sure, I'll point out the floor is hard, the carpet plush, and the windows cold, but in terms of description, it often draws the short straw. However, there is one aspect in which the tactile sense can be titillated more than the others, and that is by the clever use of verbs. I can mention fifteen times that my character's fingers clawed into the smooth silk shawl, but the fabric's texture only really comes alive when it slinks across your skin like a soft caress. Conditions on an ice planet may be freezing and harsh, but the reader only truly feels the cold when the wind whips your character's face into a pink, painful mess.

To me, taste is the most sensual of all senses. The taste of a lover's lips, a piece of chocolate melting on your tongue - both make you want to close your eyes. It is particularly powerful, then, to shock and disgust the reader by focusing on the stale bitterness of an opponent's blood.

Smell is the most powerful of all senses. Since our memories seem to have an entire hard drive dedicated to it, I like using scents to quickly orientate a reader. Once you have set the scene for a reader, e.g. a terrifying basement, anchor the emotions with a unique odor, like that of rotting earth. The next time your character notices this smell, the reader's emotions flood back.

Please understand you should always mix and layer several senses, not only to deepen the experience for the reader, but also because some readers react more strongly to one sense than to another. This post is simply meant to give food for thought as to how particularly senses can serve specific purposes.

Review: Margie Lawson courses

This isn't so much a review about any particular one of Margie Lawson's courses, but a general gush about her wonderful no-nonsense approach to writing. My first Margie moment came when I downloaded her lecture packet about Empowering Characters' Emotions. One revelation after another fired in my brain, so I figured I'd try one of her online courses.

Believe me when I say Margie takes her job seriously. Once you register, you become one of her online family for a month. She'll lavish attention on you, encourage a community spirit that's been missing in other writing workshops I've taken, and teach you honest writing skill. No, I'm not talking grammar rules, intricacies of punctuation, or spelling. And despite her ability to quickly grasp your plot, she won't pontificate about scene/sequel or goal/motivation/conflict either. Not that these aren't vital to an author's success, they're just not the focus of Margie's workshops.

Margie will teach you how to write, how to tap into your talent and drag those rare skills you never knew you possessed to the surface. She'll show you how to create a balance between background info, feelings and dialogue, hone your ability to render true-to-life moments, bust clichés or turn them on their heads, and most of all, to have fun with language.

By the end, you'll use literary devices such as alliterations to great effect, harness the power of three, and steal your readers' breath by evoking the most visceral emotions.

I'm not affiliated with Margie Lawson. Each course I have taken and re-taken was paid for by me, and paid for in the confident knowledge every cent is well spent. As far as I can tell, hers are the only workshops that focus on the most basic, and most neglected, tool in our writer's toolbox. How to be a wordsmith.

If you know of other great courses on language for fiction writers, please get in touch. In any case, my rating:

5/5

Romancing The Clone - Clever Book Title?

Most of my books are known to me and my writer friends by the main character's name. My first book GUARDED was known as "Ivy," and DIVIDE AND CONQUER as "Lea" (although it could have been known as "Nieve," since it has two main characters).

But there comes a time when I have to think of a proper title. In both cases, I went for well-known words or phrases which are connected to particular events in the book. In GUARDED, for example, Ivy fights using small metal plates, known as Guards, to focus magic. Due to events in her past, her personality is also somewhat shy and exactly trusting, i.e. guarded.

However, recently I've become aware of a great number of forced titles that are too clever for their own good. To avoid causing offense, I won't name any one book in particular. Instead, I will make them up. Romancing The Bone might be a love story between two dog owners, Romancing The Clone a love story between a widower and the clone of his late wife. Both titles are amusing at first glance and certainly relevant, but I'm not a fan of using wordplays on famous films, books or songs. It seems you're piggybacking on their success. Also, the joke soon wears thin. A story about two bar owners competing in a small village while trying not to give in to their feelings might have enough conflict to catch my interest, but you lose me as a potential reader if you call your book "Bar Wars."

Anyway, don't change your punny book title on my account. Just something to bear in mind, I hope.