Ask the Book Doctor: About Tight Writing and Voice

By Bobbie Christmas

Q: There is someone in my current critique circle who keeps saying, “Write tight.” Is he just being incredibly critical, or is he just trying to say something I should know?

A: “Write tight” is one of the basic tenets of creative writing. In truth it should be “Edit tight.” We need to write first, in any way that comes to mind. After we complete the first draft, though, we need to go back through the manuscript and examine every word to see if it is vital to the sentence, paragraph, or plot. We can then delete almost every superfluous, redundant, or unnecessary word, sentence, paragraph, or chapter. As an example, I could edit your initial question to read like this: Someone in my critique circle keeps saying, “Write tight.” Is he being critical, or is he saying something I should know? Recasting reduced thirty words to twenty-one without any loss in meaning.

Tight writing produces powerful prose. To write tight, seek and destroy weak wording in second and future drafts, and you will polish your prose.

Q: Please tell our writers’ group what is meant by a writer’s voice and if it is okay to change it from one book to another.

A: In creative writing voice refers to a mixture of things, such as word choice, punctuation, personality, perspective, point of view, opinions, preferences, interests, and subject matter. Voice can refer to a writing style, too, such short, tight sentences versus flowery, descriptive ones. Hemingway’s voice was tight, journalistic, without flowery descriptions. Here’s a quote from The Old Man and the Sea: “He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it.” On the other hand, think of Dickens, who wrote more descriptive prose and who added humor and social commentary to his works. Here’s a short quote from A Tale of Two Cities: “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” Yes, Dickens’s voice definitely differed from Hemingway’s.

A writer’s voice can reflect the way the author thinks, speaks, and expresses opinions. Some writers’ voices reflect simple thoughts. Some writers express only popular opinions through their voices, while others may address controversial subjects.

Because voice reflects the writer, though, I’m not sure a writer can easily change voices from one book to another unless the writer changes the point of view. For example, my memoir would have to be in my point of view—how I perceived things that happened to me and around me. It would definitely be written in my voice. If I wrote a novel from the point of view of one of the characters, however, I could conceivably change the voice. If my character was incarcerated, for example, I might use more slang, graphic terms, and cuss words.

Consider as an example The Catcher in the Rye, which J. D. Salinger wrote from the point of view of a teenaged boy. Examine the following quote from Holden, the point-of-view character: “I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” We clearly know Salinger himself didn’t speak that way.

Writing in a voice other than the author’s can be difficult, but it can be done. Easier, however, is to change writing styles from book to book. For example, one might write in a simpler style for a young adult novel, using small words and short sentences and paragraphs. The same writer might also write a literary novel with more complex sentences, less dialogue, more description, and longer sentences and paragraphs. In both books, though, the writer’s voice would probably be similar, because the same person conceived the stories and decided how they would play out.

Yes, it’s possible to write in varying voices, as long as the voice is consistent throughout the book in the case of omniscient point of view. If using the point of view of more than one character, it’s necessary to keep each scene in a singular point of view, but the point of view—and therefore the voice—can change with each new scene or chapter.

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Bobbie Christmas is a book editor, author of Write In Style: Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing, and owner of Zebra Communications. She will answer your questions too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or BZebra@aol.com. Read Bobbie’s Zebra Communications blog at https://www.zebraeditor.com/blog/.

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About Gerunds and Participles

 

By Bobbie Christmas

Q: One of my critique partners said I use too many gerunds and participles and said I have several dangling participles. I thought I knew the parts of speech, but I’m not sure what the person is talking about.

A: In simple terms, a participle is a form of a verb (often ending in “ing”) that is used as a modifier, as in the following: the dancing bear. 

A gerund is a present participle used as a noun, as in the following: Sleeping nightly is essential.

The use of too many words that end in “ing” can slow the pace, weaken writing, and become repetitive. They often turn potentially strong verbs into weaker forms: nouns or adjectives.

As adjectives, participles don’t always harm the quality of writing (We laughed at the dancing bears), but when linked to the verb “to be,” “ing” words replace active, more powerful verbs and lead to loose writing. Loose: The bats were hanging by their feet. (Tight: The bats hung by their feet.) Loose: The boat was bumping across the waves. (Tight: The boat bumped across the waves.)

Often the pesky “ing” form hides after began and started. Loose: The monks began chanting in the background. John started sneezing. Tight: The monks chanted in the background. John sneezed.

Save began and started for special times when the action actually begins.

She began her lecture with, “Dear friends and enemies.”

John started to sneeze, but pressed his nose to suppress the urge.

Also avoid gerunds when infinitives are better. Weak: They planned on staying until midnight. Better: They planned to stay until midnight.

Rather than delete every gerund and participle, make sure each one has a reason for existing. For example, the gerund existing in the previous sentence does not detract from the strength of the sentence. Another example of an acceptable gerund: We admired the choir’s singing.

Many writers get into a pattern of overusing participles at the beginnings of sentences. Strong writers, however, avoid overusing any structure, especially one that relies on too many “ing” words.

In the worst case, sentences that begin with “ing” words can lead to dangling participles if not handled correctly. Example of a dangling participle: Waving goodbye, the boat pulled away while we watched. As written, the boat waved goodbye, because the word waving refers to the next noun that did the action, the boat. To correct the sentence, recast it, perhaps this way: We waved goodbye while the boat pulled away. 

What does dangling really mean? Modifying—or descriptive—phrases must have logical relationships to the nearest subject in a sentence. When those words are omitted—when the person or thing who actually performed the activity does not appear in the sentence—the phrase dangles.

Dangling or missing modifiers, however, do not have to involve “ing” words. If something is missing that makes the sentence say something other than what was intended, it is still a dangling modifier. Here’s an example: After college graduation I paid for my son to travel Europe for a summer. In this example the sentence is in essence saying, “After I graduated from college, I paid for my son to travel.” The correction would be something like this: After my son graduated from college, I paid for him to travel Europe for a summer.

Q: I have recently written a novel in Farsi and I have translated the first seventeen pages of it to English. Even though the story line has been of interest to some publishers and agents in US and UK, I could not get them to commit. I am willing to rewrite it, and I would like to know what I should address to interest publishers in America.

A: It’s been my experience that people translating from Farsi use quite a few gerunds and participles (words ending in “ing”), but contemporary American publishers prefer authors to avoid them, because they not only get wordy, but they also often rely on passive verbs (such as forms of “to be”) instead of active verbs. For example, instead of “She was planning a trip to Florida,” publishers might prefer “She planned a trip to Florida.” Instead of “They were dancing in the street,” a strong writer might choose “They danced in the street.”

Also, those who learn Farsi first sometimes then learn British English, which is more elevated than US English. American publishers often expect the writing to be at about a sixth- or seventh-grade level, rather than higher, as British English tends to be. I would avoid using British terms too, such as amidst, amongst, whilst, and towards, when in America we use amid, among, while, and toward. These things are minor in comparison to the story, though, and American publishers want a compelling story peopled with interesting characters. Americans want plenty of plot-related action and dialogue and a satisfying ending, even though it doesn’t have to be a happy one. Contemporary publishers rarely purchase literary writing—which tends to have long, flowery descriptions and such—and prefer tight, active, writing.

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Bobbie Christmas is a book editor, author of Write In Style: How to Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing, and owner of Zebra Communications. She will answer your questions too. Send them to Bobbie[at]zebraeditor[dot]com or BZebra[at]aol[dot]com. Read Bobbie’s blog at https://www.zebraeditor.com/blog/.

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