Silent Dialogue – Part 1

Silent Dialogue:

Take the Reader inside your Character's Mind

If you really want the reader to feel what your character feels, to know her deepest, most intimate thoughts, consider making your character's mind a kind of amusement park ride, and let the reader jump onboard occasionally to experience the thrill.

WARNING: Do this sparingly and only to good effect.  Like so many weapons in the writer's arsenal, you can overuse it and desensitize the reader, thus rendering the weapon impotent.  Pick your spots.  Make sure your weapon packs a punch!

Silent Dialogue (expressed in italicized text, and technically a monologue) promotes characterization and plot in much the same way spoken dialogue does.  The difference, of course, is that the character speaks to her self, silently, within the confines of her own mind.  Through the magic of narration, we bring the readers inside her mind and let them hear her thoughts.

Readers enjoy dialogue, for it brings a character to life, makes her a breathing, feeling, thinking being, in a way simple narrative can't.  Yet if you have a scene in which only one character is present, what can you do?  Think about your own life.  How often, when you're alone, do you speak aloud to yourself?  Let your character do the same when it's appropriate.  She can also speak to her self silently, just as you do in your life when you don’t want someone to hear you.

We all do it.  It's a natural human act.  If you want your character to be human, to live on the page, don’t be afraid to let her do the same.

Our most common use of Silent Dialogue is to ask our selves a question.  Questions are another useful tool in the writer's arsenal, yet they can also be dangerous.  If you ask too many questions, without providing immediate answers, you will likely frustrate the reader, who counts on the narrator to be the authority.  However, it might be perfectly reasonable for one of your characters to ask a question for which there is not yet an answer.  You may use that tool to promote suspense, and you may want to use Silent Dialogue to do so.

To illustrate, I offer this excerpt (I use more Silent Dialogue here than in most of my novel) from my debut novel, Forgive Me, Alex.  I've placed the Silent Dialogue in a bold font only to highlight it here.  In your manuscript, use regular italicized text.  NOTE: As this is a public blog, I've displayed some of the expletives more…creatively.

            Crash!

            The distinctive crushing of metal assaulted our Saturday afternoon, as Alex and I watched television and waited for Mom to return from the store.  I jumped from the chair and looked out the living room window, but I couldn't see enough of the street from there, so I darted into the kitchen for a better angle.

            Dear God, no!

            I yelled to Alex as I bolted to the back door.  "Stay put, Hoopster!  You hear me?  Do not come outside!"

            Mom was back—almost.  Our Chevy Bel Air sat right in front of our house, crushed into an impossibly condensed version of itself.  A half-ton pick-up truck, its front end curled forward in a crescent moon, loomed over the windshield of our car.  I ran through the glass and the debris to the twisted wreckage.

            Where is she?  She must be in there.  I have to find her!

            I looked into the envelope-sized gap where the driver-side window had once been.  The back of Mom's head was barely visible above the crushed compartment.

            "Mom, are you okay?  Mom!"

            I pulled my head back, reached through the gap with my left hand, and walked my fingers along the wreckage to reach her.  I found her wet, sticky hair and stretched out…farther…farther.  I couldn’t turn her face toward me, so I moved my fingers from her chin and up the far side of her face, and—

            I bolted upright.

            My brain would not—could not—register what I'd felt.  I stared at my left hand as I used my right hand to wipe away the blood and the gray matter.  Everything began to spin and close in, and my chest hammered with every breath, as though God had reached down and clutched the air from the world.  I leaned against the car, and my hands painted two red streaks down the metal as my legs folded beneath me and I collapsed against the jagged wreck.

            All was dark, a blank.

            Life resumed as a man fell from the pick-up truck, coughed and spat on the street.  He looked at me, inched forward on his hands and knees, and vomited.  It took him a moment to recover, but he….

            What in hell is he doing?

            The rotten #&#$$*&#&$# laughed and whooped it up as though he'd perpetrated some ingenious practical joke.  His bloodshot eyes radiated as he spewed a garbled, incoherent mush that my mind struggled to translate.

            "S##t!  I think I f###ed up my truck, buddy.  Can you give a fella a hand?"

            He faded in and out of focus as my last image of Mom—what was left of her—overpowered me.  Everything paused, but as I caught my breath and the spinning stopped, the full tragedy dawned on me.  The wicked b####rd who'd crushed my mom…was drunk.

            My legs had deserted me, turned to dust.  I could only look around in a daze at our neighbors, who'd emerged from their houses to investigate.  What should I—

            The a####le's staccato bursts of drunken laughter again pulled me back.  The very air I breathed stifled me—gas, oil, burnt rubber and a vague metallic tinge, all mingled with the sour contents of the killer's stomach poured onto the street.  I raised my hands, bathed in crimson and wafting copper, before my face.

            A disembodied voice spoke from the void—my voice.  "Where did the blood come from?  Did I cut myself?"

            "What's that, buddy?"  The murderous b####rd laughed again.  "S##t!  You think you got it bad?  Just look at my f####ng truck!"

            I floated still, adrift in an endless gray ocean of broken thought, and struggled to make sense of the fluid that drenched my hands.  It was…it was….

            Oh, God, it's Mom's blood and brains.

I hope you found that helpful.  Perhaps you're ready to return to your manuscript to throw in a few lines—remember, not too many—of Silent Dialogue.

'Til next time, remember this: Writing well is not easy.  It takes work.  You mustn't be lazy.

Lane Diamond's Editing Service

Passive Voice - Part 3

Passive Voice: Placing the Cart before the Horse

(NOTE: If you haven't read my entries, Passive Voice – Part 1, and Passive Voice – Part 2, I recommend you do so before continuing with this one.)

I want to clarify what I mean when I say that you must "Place the horse before the cart."

A writer often creates Passive Voice sentences because his thought processes are out of order.  He thinks first of the Object, then the Act, and finally the Subject.  Thus, his thought process works something like this:

1)  There was this thing, and;

2)  Something happened to this thing, and;

3)  What happened to the thing was done by this character (if any).

Notice how, in that line of Passive thinking, it's all about the thing.  As a result, the writer will likely create a Passive Voice sentence, because the thing is the Object of the sentence—THE CART—yet he's thinking about it as the Subject.

The writer must correct—re-order—his thought processes to work like this:

4)  There was this character, and;

5)  This character did something, and;

6)  In fact, this character did it to/for/with someone or something.

Notice how, in this new line of Active thinking, it's all about the character.  As a result, the writer will likely create an Active Voice sentence, because he has made the character the Subject of the sentence—THE HORSE—now in its rightful place.

Thus, the keys are:

A)  Subject = Horse

B)  Object = Cart

C)  The Subject commits the Act.

D)  The Act affects the Object.

E)  Place the horse before the cart.

F)  This is RIGHT: The horse pulls the cart.

G)  This is WRONG: The cart is pulled by the horse.

Now, like all "rules" of writing, this is not a 100%-er.  If you wish to provide special emphasis to a particular segment of the sentence, you might place that segment at the end of the sentence—where the reader best feels the emphasis.  However, when you do that, ask yourself the critical questions: Does that closing really punch?  Will the reader really feel that?  Or did I just create a sloppy sentence for no good reason?

I will now illustrate further through a series of specific examples I've seen in pieces I've edited.  As always, I shall keep confidential the authors' names and story titles, to protect the not-so-innocent.  [Insert chuckle here.]

BAD: Midsummer's earthy colors of the landscape were dominated by dots of green.

      (These "reversed order" Passive Voice sentences typically run long.  Another benefit of Active sentences: they run shorter.  In this example, I cut the 12-word original by 25%, down to 9 words.)

GOOD: Dots of green dominated the landscape's midsummer earthy colors.

BAD: Adjustment was expedited when the captain called for a meeting with the ninety-two passengers on the second day out.

      (The author started the sentence with the Object.)

GOOD: The captain expedited adjustment when he called for a meeting with the ninety-two passengers on the second day out.

BAD: The wound had been made, and now the men could not be placated by my yielding.

GOOD: I'd already inflicted the wound, and I would not placate the men now by yielding.

BAD: Outside, the soft rattle of pebbles dragged back down the beach was pierced by the aching cries of the gulls that arced and skimmed above the foam.

      (This is a difficult sentence on a number of levels.  Read it aloud.  You might decide, as I did, that the reader would appreciate a chance to catch his breath.  Work it through in a couple of steps if necessary.  First [GOOD], kill the Passive Voice.  Then [BETTER], aim for the best possible structure.)

GOOD: Outside, the aching cries of gulls, which arced and skimmed above the foam, pierced the soft rattle of pebbles dragged back down the beach by the tide.

BETTER: Outside, gulls arced and skimmed above the foam, and their aching cries pierced the soft rattle of pebbles dragged back down the beach by the tide.

BAD: Our band was chosen for the gathering by the other band's elders.

GOOD: The other band's elders chose our band for the gathering.

In closing, please indulge me as I remind you once more to make these your watchwords: Keep it strong and direct!

'Til next time, remember this: Writing well is not easy.  It takes work.  You mustn't be lazy.

Lane Diamond's Editing Service

Passive Voice - Part 2

Passive Voice: An Act without an Actor

(NOTE: If you haven't read my entry, Passive Voice – Part 1, I recommend you do so before continuing with this one.)

Writers often create sentences in which something happens, but it happens out of thin air—no character actually does it.  An act occurs, but no actor commits the act.

Example: A stone skipped across the pond.

Presto!  It must be magic!  [Insert chuckle here.]  Nah, it's just poor writing—usually.  On rare occasions—very rare—you may want to show action without revealing the actor, as a tool for building temporary suspense.

Example: The door suddenly slammed behind him!

However, the vast majority of this type of Passive Voice sentence occurs not to build suspense, but because the writer fails to commit to that which matters most—his characters' actions.  As I said in my previous entry, readers invest themselves in your characters and in their actions, not in actions that happen as if out of thin air.  Without a character to invest in, readers lose interest (exception: Setting descriptions).

Will readers put down your story because you gave them one poor sentence?  Of course not.  However, if you dump too many meaningless acts into your piece—meaning things keep happening, but nobody does anything—they'll bail out on you.

Readers rarely care for this: A stone skipped across the pond.  They want to know who's doing the skipping: Susie skipped a stone across the pond.

Readers care about PEOPLE—your characters—and they care about actions only to the extent that characters commit them, or to the extent that those acts affect the characters.

I will now illustrate further through a series of specific examples I've seen in pieces I've edited.  As always, I shall keep confidential the authors' names and story titles, to protect the not-so-innocent.  [Insert chuckle here.]

BAD: The words were not spoken so much as a command as a gentle prodding, an understanding and empathy that gave Bill strength.

      (We see here no actor, just an act.  If you've mentioned the character's name in a previous sentence, and you haven't changed Subjects, use a simple pronoun—he, she, etc.—to clarify the action.  Otherwise, provide the acting character's name.)

GOOD: Bill did not speak the words as a command so much as a gentle prod, with understanding and empathy that gave John strength.

BETTER: Bill offered the words not as a command, but as a gentle prod, with understanding and empathy to give John strength.

BAD: The wound had been made, and now the men could not be placated by my yielding.  Without John willing to throw himself into the fray, I would surely be struck down by their numbers.  As detestable as it seemed, my only recourse was undeniable: I would have to break through their lines and flee.

      (First, we have the act without an actor.  Second, we have Subject/Object reversals.)

GOOD: I'd already inflicted the wound, and I would not placate the men now by yielding.  If John didn’t throw himself into the fray, I would surely fall to their numbers.  My only recourse, though detestable, was undeniable: break through their lines and flee.

BETTER: I'd already inflicted the wound, and I would not placate the men now by yielding.  I needed John to throw himself into the fray, or I would surely fall to such a large group of soldiers.  Although I detested my only recourse, I had no choice: I must break through their lines and flee.

      (Why is this better?  Well, this is a first-person narrative, and we are now strongly in the narrator-character's POV—his emotional state—with this BETTER alternative.)

BAD: The petition was met with indignant silence.

      (As readers, we can only assume that someone did the meeting.  Please be specific and direct.)

GOOD: The captain responded to the petition with indignant silence.

BAD: A second, more urgent message bypassed the captain's ranking officers to appear on his main screen.

      (Three cheers for that very talented message!  [Insert chuckle here.]  The inert Object, "urgent message," cannot act on its own.  We need a Subject here.)

GOOD: The passengers bypassed the captain's ranking officers and sent a second, more urgent message directly to his main screen.

BAD: The lodge was kept ready for ceremonies, advisers and visitors when the gatherings came to their camp.

      (Who did the keeping?)

GOOD: The Counsel Elders kept the lodge for ceremonies, advisors, and visitors when the gatherings came to their camp.

BETTER: The Counsel Elders kept the lodge for ceremonies, advisors, and visitors.

In closing, let me remind you—because I just can't seem to say it enough—to make these your watchwords: Keep it strong and direct!

'Til next time, remember this: Writing well is not easy.  It takes work.  You mustn't be lazy.

Lane Diamond's Editing Service

Passive Voice – Part 1

Passive Voice: A Writing Sin

As a reader, I hate Passive Voice as much as any other writing sin—and more than most.  As an editor, I darn near pop an aneurysm when I see it.

1)  Readers view Passive Voice as weak and indecisive, as if the author lacks confidence.

      a)  When readers see that, they too lose confidence—and interest.

      b)  The effect is subtle; for many readers, it occurs at a subconscious level.  They may not know why they don't like it, but they'll dislike it, all the same.

2)  Readers invest themselves in the characters' actions, not in actions that happen as if out of thin air.

     a)  I refer to this nasty Passive Voice practice as "An Act without an Actor."  See my blog entry, Passive Voice – Part 2, for more on this.

     b)  Without a character to invest in, readers lose interest.

     c)  The only real exception to this is description of Setting.

3)  Writers tend to scratch the Subject of the larger paragraph/segment from that sentence, or at least relegate them to secondary status, and convert the Object to the Subject.

      a)  Readers rarely care about this: A rock skipped across the pond.

      b)  They won't like this: The rock was skipped across the pond by Danny.

      c)  However, they might care about and like this: Danny skipped a rock across the pond.

      d)  Writers who engage in this nasty Passive Voice practice "Place the Cart before the Horse."  See my blog entry, Passive Voice – Part 3, for more on this.

4)  Passive Voice often results from the author's attempt not to commit, not to offend, not to stand firm.  His fear and anxiety often lead him down a meandering, excruciating, wordy route to the end of the sentence.

As Stephen King says in his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Scribner):

Two pages of the passive voice—just about any legal document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction—make me want to scream.  It's weak, it's circuitous, and it's frequently tortuous, as well.  How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun.  Oh, man—who farted, right?  A simpler way to express this idea—sweeter and more forceful, as well—might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss.  I'll never forget it.  I'm not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we're out of that awful passive voice.

Since Mr. King hates "with" twice in four words, how about this as another alternative: My romance with Shayna began when we first kissed.  What a moment!

I will now illustrate further through a series of specific examples I've seen in pieces I've edited.  As always, I shall keep confidential the authors' names and story titles, to protect the not-so-innocent.  (Insert chuckle here.)

BAD: Susan and the old man had chipped enough flint to make more tools than would ever be used.

GOOD: Jeremy and the old man had chipped enough flint to make more tools than they would ever use.

BAD: Jimmy was comforted by the three small pups Mike had left behind, but he still felt empty.

GOOD: The three small pups Mike had left behind comforted Jimmy, but he still felt empty.

BAD: Mary shuffled on the rug until she was squarely facing her son.

      (Writers commonly use conjugations such as "was doing anything" in a Past Tense narrative, but it rarely satisfies.  If you suffer this bad habit, break it!)

GOOD: Mary shuffled on the rug until she squarely faced her son.

BETTER: Mary shuffled on the rug, spun on her heels and faced her son.  She stood close enough to feel his breath on her nose.

BAD: Time is surely a measurement that could not have been marked in a cold and motionless void.

      (The author also mixed verb tenses here, using "is" in a Past Tense narrative.)

GOOD: Time was surely without measurement in that cold and motionless void.

BETTER: Time held neither measure nor meaning in that cold and motionless void.

BAD: Speed, time, and distance are so closely related that one can’t be considered without involving the other two.

      (Sometimes you have to stretch yourself a bit.  Opportunities like this one are where writers earn their keep.)

GOOD: Speed, time and distance link inexorably, and we can't consider one without involving the other two.

BETTER: Speed, time and distance function as a single, three-part equation, for one exists only where the other two are present.

BAD: The words were not spoken so much as a command as a gentle prodding, an understanding and empathy that gave Bill strength.

GOOD: He did not speak the words as a command so much as a gentle prod, with understanding and empathy that gave Bill strength.
BETTER: John offered the words not as a command, but as a gentle prod, with understanding and empathy to give Bill strength.

BAD: The wound had been made, and now the men could not be placated by my yielding.  Without John willing to throw himself into the fray, I would surely be struck down by their numbers.  As detestable as it seemed, my only recourse was undeniable: I would have to break through their lines and flee.

      (As is so often the case, Passive Voice led the author down a long, circuitous, Wordy path.  On top of everything else, the following alternative chops the original word count of 54 down to 43, a 20% reduction.)

GOOD: I'd already inflicted the wound, and I would not placate the men now by yielding.  If John didn’t throw himself into the fray, I would surely fall to their numbers.  My only recourse, though detestable, was undeniable: break through their lines and flee.

Let me urge you, as I do all my clients, to make these your watchwords: Keep it strong and direct!

If you've studied the art and craft of writing at all, you no doubt have seen these warnings against Passive Voice.  Nonetheless, I shall now call out the reinforcements, as it were.

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers – John Gardner (Vintage Books)

I've excerpted the following, in applicable segments, from pages 98-100.

            In the work of beginning writers, especially those weak in the basic skills of English composition, the usual mistake is that the writer distracts the reader by clumsy or incorrect writing…  But the standard third-person narrator can never miss.  If the narrator slips into faulty syntax, the reader's mind tracks away from the action [sic] to the problem of figuring out what the sentence means.  The distraction is almost certain to be emotional as well as intellectual, since the reader has every right to feel that the writer's business is to say what he means clearly…

            Clumsy writing is an even more common mistake in the work of amateurs, though it shows up even in the works of very good writers…

            The most obvious forms of clumsiness, really failures in the basic skills, include such mistakes as inappropriate or excessive use of the passive voice…

            Except in stock locutions, such as "You were paid yesterday," "The Germans were defeated," or "The project was abandoned," the passive voice is virtually useless in fiction except when used for comic effect, as when the writer mimics some fool's slightly pompous way of speaking or quotes some institutional directive.  The active voice is almost invariably more direct and vivid: "Your parrot bit me" as opposed to (passive) "I was bitten by your parrot."  …In a story presented by the conventional omniscient narrator—an objective and largely impersonal formal narrative voice like, say, Tolstoy's—the passive voice is almost certain to offend and distract…

On Writing Well – William Zinsser (Harper Collins)

I've excerpted the following, in applicable segments, from pages 108-109.

            Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb.  The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style—in clarity and vigor—is the difference between life and death for a writer.

            "Joe hit him" is strong.  "He was hit by Joe" is weak.  The first is short and vivid and direct; it leaves no doubt about who did what.  The second is necessarily longer and it has an insipid quality; something was done by somebody to someone else.  A style that consists mainly of passive constructions, especially if the sentences are long, saps the reader's energy.  Nobody quite knows what is being perpetrated by whom and on whom.

            I use "perpetrated" because it's the kind of word that passive-voice writers are fond of.  They prefer long words of Latin origin to short Anglo-Saxon words—which compounds their trouble and makes their sentences still more glutinous…

            Verbs are the most important of all your tools.  They push the sentence forward and give it momentum.  Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully.  Active verbs also enable us to visualize an activity because they require a pronoun or a noun to put them in motion…  Don't choose one that is dull or merely serviceable.  Make active verbs activate your sentences, and try to avoid the kind that need an appended preposition to complete their work.  Don't "set up" a business that you can "start" or "launch."  Don't say that the president of the company "stepped down."  Did he "resign?"  Did he "retire?"  Did he "get fired?"  Be precise.  Use precise verbs.

Make Your Words Work – Gary Provost (Writer's Digest Books)

I've excerpted the following, in applicable segments, from pages 20-21.

            In writing…active is more interesting than passive.  …Your reader will fix his attention on the active words and phrases.

            New writers often fall into the habit of casting their characters as the passive recipients of some activity, when they should be writing about people or objects doing things, making things happen.

            A key to finding the active voice is to write about people, not things.  "A good time was had by all," for example, is a passive-voice sentence about good times.  "Everybody had a good time" is an active-voice sentence about people.

            The tip-off to these dull, passive-voice sentences is usually a compound verb such as "was driven" or "were presented."  Cash them in for sharp, short, interesting, active verbs, and your writing will work better.

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (Macmillan), is another indispensable source (many refer to it as the bible for writers).  They address Passive Voice on pages 18-19.

'Til next time, remember this: Writing well is not easy.  It takes work.  You mustn't be lazy.

Lane Diamond's Editing Service

The Publishing Industry – A Tough Nut to Crack

I aim this post at aspiring authors who seek to publish, for the first time, via a traditional publisher.

I love to read fiction, and one of my greatest joys is the discovery of wonderful new authors.  Yet they are not as plentiful as one might expect.  If you've been trying to publish your first novel (and I don't mean self-publish—anyone with a credit card can do that), you know precisely what I mean.

1)  The traditional publishing industry is a notoriously difficult nut to crack.

2)  Most agents require a referral, or preliminary contact at a writer's conference, before they'll take a hard look at a first-time author of fiction.  Some agents express indignation at that statement but…come on…really?  Who knew that just finding an agent who'll read the manuscript would be such a daunting task—such a crazy concept?  I didn't…until I started the process.  Yikes!  Yet as broken as the industry is in this regard, first-time authors bear some of the blame—a great big chunk of it, in fact.

3)  Most first-time authors are simply not ready for publication.  Their work needs some…er…um…work.  Most submissions that agents receive from first-timers are substandard.  Agents, who are only human (Oh yes they are!), develop an auto-response psychologically: "Oh no!  This submission is from a first-timer!  Aaaaahhhhhh………"  They must fight this tendency every day, I think.  Some succeed—sometimes—and some don't.  The walls they erect against first-time authors of fiction are formidable, which makes our task of cracking that nut an insanely difficult one.  Is anyone else losing his hair?  Yeesh!

You must be a good storyteller, of course, but you must be more than that.  You must be a WRITER.  In other words, WHAT you write is important, but HOW WELL you write it is equally so.

4)  Agents are unforgiving when it comes to the work of first-time authors.  You can get away with much less than do established authors.  Let's face it: some poor writing makes it into print—but rarely from first-time authors of fiction.  Do you think that's unfair?  You'd best get over it, and do what you must to break through those barriers.  If you can't accept that, please go back to your day job—save your sanity.

5)  You must grab the agent on the very first page of the manuscript, preferably the first paragraph.  In fact, why wait that long?  Hook them with the FIRST SENTENCE!  Front-load your piece; otherwise, they'll never see all the brilliance that awaits them deeper into your manuscript.  As a first-timer, and assuming you don't have an "in" with the agent (referral, personal history, etc.), you have no reputation or track record to serve you.  Therefore, grab them by the throat, right out of the chute, and don't let go.

6)  No spelling errors!  No grammatical errors!  Period!  Do you want to be a professional?  Outstanding!  Then write professional prose.  Oh sure, there are those moments when, for purely stylistic purposes, you violate the rules of grammar.  Fine, but remember: you're a first-time author.  Agents will accept only so many of those "stylistic choices" before they determine that you simply don't know how to write properly.  Besides, if you minimize those stylistic flourishes, they'll pack a much stronger punch (assuming you've executed them well); if you overload them, you'll water them down, sap them of their effectiveness.  Don't be too cute by half, for the likely result may be the all too familiar: The agent stops reading your manuscript, perhaps with a frustrated sigh, and reaches for one of those wonderful little slips that start, "Thank you for allowing us to review your manuscript.  Unfortunately…"

Good writing, even merely adequate writing, is an acquired skill.  It requires rather a lot of work.  Darn it!  Yes, you must have some innate talent, but you must develop your natural skills to reach your full potential.  You must work at it.

7)  Read, read, and then read some more—fiction.  If you write romance novels, for example, then read A LOT of romance novels.  Know your genre.  Know what passes as "publishable" material, but always keep in mind that the standards are higher for first-time authors.

8)  Read, read, and then read some more—nonfiction.  If you were going to be an electrician, you'd read books about electronics.  If you were going to be an astronomer, you'd read books about astronomy.  Need I say it?  Well, all right: Read books about writing!  There are some great ones out there.  If you’re a first-timer, focus initially on those earmarked for beginners, and make sure that The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (Macmillan), is part of your arsenal.

9)  Finally, if you’re serious about publishing your work, find an editor.  Every beginning writer (and most established ones) needs an editor.  We're too close to our own work.  We often make mistakes that belie our skill level, meaning we know better, but we may read right over those mistakes when self-editing.  A writer's mind puts up psychological barriers, as if it assumes that, if she wrote it in the first place, it must be right.  Why else would she have written it?  It’s rather as the old saw says: "Forest?  What forest?  I don’t see no stinkin' forest.  All those darned trees are in the way!"

When it comes to your fiction, think of your prose as the trees and your STORY as the forest.  If an agent can't see through the trees to find the forest, your STORY will wallow in perpetual anonymity.

'Til next time, remember this: Writing well is not easy.  It takes work.  You mustn't be lazy.

Lane Diamond's Editing Service

My First Blog Entry, or "Why am I doing this?"

Well, I'll be getting my feet wet in the days ahead, but I thought I'd give you a quick idea of what you can expect in this blog -- a mission statement, as it were, though an informal one.

I am an author, though I'm still looking for my BIG break -- the publication of my debut novel, Forgive Me, Alex, a psychological thriller.  In the meantime, I earn a meager living as a Freelance Editor of fiction, and I currently have several published or aspiring authors as clients.  As it happens, I have room for a couple more, and I hope this blog will, among other things, lead to future clients.

More than that, however, I will use this blog as a place to commiserate with fellow authors, and to offer helpful advice and writing tips.  I'll touch on most subjects (eventually) that writers must address to raise the level of their prose to meet professional standards.  This ties in nicely with my editing service.

The service I offer my clients exceeds that of most editors, as I often take on the roll of Writing Instructor.  Now, you might say that all editors do that, and I'm sure you'd be right -- to a point.  I believe I carry it a bit further.


If you're a writer who wants to publish via traditional outlets, and you need an editor to help you prepare your piece for publication, see my service ad at:
Lane Diamond's Editing Service


I'd love to talk to you about it.

'Til next time, write on!