Axe the dreaded cliche

"The most essential gift for a good writer," said Ernest Hemingway, "is a built-in shock-proof shit detector."

How true.  Though usually we have to grow one rather than having it built in.  My own acquired detector is always on the look-out for cliches.  There are so many time-worn phrases that don't even feel like cliches, that we are easily tricked into using them.

The boon of the cliche is its instant recognizable signal.  It does what it says on the tin.  (Oops, there it is.)  But this is also its liability.  It's too recognizable.  It doesn't surprise the reader, and thus doesn't hook him into your prose.  Finding another way to say it, one that is uniquely your way, is key to finding your voice.

It's not just another way of saying how blue the sky is, how her heart pounded or announcing the effect of shock.  It's looking for a completely different angle on the subject ('thinking outside the box').

Why talk about the sky at all?  Why not concentrate on light and shadow, for example, and its effect on the surroundings.  For that matter, why not take shock out into the environment and examine what the shocked person sees and how it changes in their consciousness?  Instead of pounding hearts, what about the heightened sense of sound outside the body?

It can be more effective to do the opposite of what is going on.  If the situation is interior with the person, go outside for your effects.  If the situation is exterior, go inside and show their reaction.

This is only one way of avoiding cliche.  There are as many ways as there are writers.  The key is first to start noticing the cliches in your work, and then backtrack and think how you could express this almost using another dimension.  Surprisingly, once you have forced yourself through it for a while, the practice becomes part of your craft and it isn't nearly as difficult to do as you might think.

And when you read, look at how other writers do it.  At the least, it'll hone your shit-detector as you start noticing the cliches they missed.

Post-publication

Ok, so The Gilded Shroud came out last Tuesday in the US.  And I waited in all day, expecting something to happen.  Here's a piece of advice:  don't do that!

Nothing happened.  I couldn't work, I was too excited.  I sat at the PC, googling the title and rolling through links looking for something new.  There wasn't anything.  So then I fooled around on the net, looking at various sites for future ref on other stuff.  Then I rechecked the title.  Still nothing.

The thing was, I realised afterwards, all the work had gone in before.  A couple of reviews had come out already, the book was on sale all over the place.  Now there was nothing to do but wait for the book to get sold and for people to read it. End of story.

So I got on with my writing after that.  There have been a couple more reviews, but I'm unlikely to know anything at all about sales until the first royalty statement comes in - and I have no idea when that will be.  The only thing that will happen earlier, hopefully, is the next contract and that's up to my agents.

Moral?  Enjoy the moment, but then forget about it and get onto the next thing.  It's the same game as completing a book and starting to send it out to agents.  Don't wait for replies.  Start the next project.  Otherwise you'll go nuts with the waiting and the disappointment when zilch happens.

All data on the book is at my website www.elizabethbailey.co.uk

Ghostwriting adventure!

Since I'm doing just this at the moment, it may be of interest to let you know how I'm finding the task.  I'm creating a fictionalised biography for someone who wanted it to read like a novel.  It's an odd sort of experience in several ways.

First, I am working from life memories.  We spent two or three days together while the subject gave me the life story data and I typed like mad on my Alphie (Alphasmart computer).  There are also lots of news cuttings and a couple of background books for research.  Back home, I transferred everything to my PC and went through it to find the holes.

The first thing I realised was that I needed more of the subject's emotional life.  Without that, I couldn't create a novel style book.  Back I went with a whole heap of questions and the subject talked some more while I typed.  Then I had to interweave this new stuff into my original text.  The deadline then shifted two months forward from December to October and I blanched.

At this point, I said I really had to start writing or I'd never make it and I couldn't know what was missing until I got going.  And off I went, taking each episode and turning it into scenes.  Immediately I discovered I had to invent dialogue.  I sent back the first chapters to check the subject was happy with what I was doing.  Turned out it was more than satisfactory.

But wait!  Now the deadline shifted again - another month forward to beginning October.  Argghhh!!  So I then went hell for leather and am now a quarter of the way into the story.

Next problem to come up was anomalies in the timeframe.  I'd been given conflicting dates and found I had developed the story in an incorrect sequence.  Back to the subject again to confer.  We talked it to and fro and decided dramatic style was more important than the exact sequence.  In other words, I was allowed to use artistic licence.

It's actually quite fun doing this.  And not much different from writing an original novel, except that I've got to stick closely to the outline.  Having a free hand with the dialogue and the subject's thoughts helps a lot.  From what brief comments I've been given on emotions, I'm able to work up a whole internal monologue to fit.  And as it's written in first person, I haven't got to worry about other viewpoints.  Everything is subjective to the subject's opinions and feelings, and everything is guesswork about what others are thinking.

I don't really mind that the deadline is so tight because it will free me up to start on my own third detective novel as soon as I'm done.  Plus I write best - as I'm sure I've said before - when I write fast.  No time to dither or worry about the quality of the writing.

My verdict on ghosting?  As long as it's using my fiction skills, bring it on!

Cripes! Long time no blog!

I hadn't realised how long it's been since I blogged here.  Have been screamingly busy and almost unable to do anything else but what I was doing... Then finished that and was straight into the local arts festival and that has just finished and I'm picking up the pieces.

I did a couple of writing workshops during the festival, including my write-a-thon and the skinny on how to get published.  I found myself raving about e-books and the possibilities that have opened up, and I realised how things have changed in a year.  I skated over self-publishing in last year's workshop, but now the ballgame is completely different.

You don't need me to tell you how Kindle has changed everything.  I am preparing old unpublished books myself for this market.  But here's a word of caution: put your book out there by all means, but first ensure it's the best you can do.

Don't sell yourself short.  Edit the work within an inch of its life!  If you aren't certain about any aspect of it, get it looked over by an expert - me or someone else who does assessments.  And then re-edit as needed.

The big downside to self-publishing on e-book is the plethora of really dreadful, badly written stuff with which your book will be keeping company.  My view is that a well-written quality book that catches the reader's attention and holds him for the duration will stand out and will succeed through word of mouth.  A badly written, poorly edited book spells death for your next one, because the buyer won't buy you again.

So get it right before you put it out there and you stand a much better chance of building a following.

Here's the good news - you do learn as you write!

I'm editing one of my old unpublished books for e-book, and it's interesting to discover lots of craft points that I now bring up with writers starting out.  Most obvious of these is viewpoint again.

First off, there are too many extra viewpoints (though I will have to hang on to a couple as I don't want to wholly rewrite the story).  Second, there is head-hopping like mad.  Third, the viewpoint when there is not polished.

A common mistake on the latter:  characters allegedly in viewpoint are spoken of as if someone else is talking - eg "a reminiscent smile rose to his lips".  No!  He can't see himself smile.  He can only feel the reminiscence, and if he smiles, he smiles.  It's in viewpoint, it has to be active.  We are not in the smile's viewpoint!

In essence, this type of writing is authorial.  In other words, it's author intrusion - telling the reader, which makes it passive, rather than showing it in the character's head/heart, which is active.  The result is to distance the reader from the character.  Head-hopping has the same effect because the reader has to switch identity from one character to the other.  This is why most writing advice suggests keeping one scene to one character's viewpoint.

I'm not going to be able to iron out all these errors, but I'm doing as much as I can without getting into major rewrites on the story.  What's good about it is that all these years down the line I've learned the craft so well I can spot this stuff easily.  And it isn't as if I've "studied" it.  I've just written and written and written.

So don't be dismayed if you are only on your third, fourth or even tenth book, and you still find you're making this sort of mistake.  (This particular book was in fact my 12th full length novel!)  You are learning and you will get to the point where you can do it fully in viewpoint almost without thinking.  And your writing will get better and better because you will pull your reader into the story and hold them there.

You don't have to write in first person to write in viewpoint

This may be old hat to most, but I've recently helped someone with this problem, so it's worth going over it again for anyone who just doesn't know.  It's a craft point, and it's really simple.

Viewpoint, or being in the character's head, gives a story immediacy.  Even though you are writing in the past tense, it feels to the reader as if everything is happening now. Your objective is to pull the reader in so that they are seeing, feeling and thinking along with the character.  Then you can inject "information" about actions and it doesn't interrupt the flow or the viewpoint.

Reduced to simplicity, you write just as if it was "I" but substitute "he" or "she" and add the character's name every so often for clarity.  Thus:

First person:  "I raced hell for leather down the alleyway, shoving aside without apology a kid wearing a hoodie.  I could just see the black-coated figure ahead of me.  If I could only get a spurt on, I'd overtake him in seconds."

Third person:  "He raced hell for leather down the alleyway, shoving aside without apology a kid wearing a hoodie.  He could just see the black-coated figure ahead of him.  If he could only get a spurt on, he'd overtake the guy in seconds."

Almost exactly the same, except for identifying "the guy" instead of "him" to save confusion because we already have several "he's" along the way.

Frankly, that's really all there is to maintaining viewpoint inside the character's head.  Too much is often made of viewpoint, but if you stick to this really simple formula, it's easy.  You've got action, thought,and characterisation in three sentences.  When things calmed down a bit, you could add feelings too, along with using the other senses.

Writing doesn't need to be complex, honestly. Stick to simplicity and you can't go wrong.

Am I a micro-publisher?

Well, what I am is a one-woman online outfit opening doors for new writers.  Digital and online publishing is overcoming the traditionally tough route to publication.  But it is still true that everyone needs an editor.  Which is where what I’ve decided to call the micro publisher comes in.

I’ve launched Timeless Books with an anthology of short stories introducing new writers.  The stories originate from a summer story competition run in tandem with the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Sunday Express magazine.  I wrote to a number of entrants whose stories had shown promise and offered an assessment with the hope of the rewrite going into the anthology.  These fourteen tales are the result.

THE WAYS OF LOVE is a collection of stories in fresh voices.  Under the overall theme, the stories are very different.  From light to dark, from poignant to cynical, they illustrate the frailties and foibles of the human heart.

I’ve had to wear all the hats, including editing, proofing and designing the cover.  Fortunately I was able to use an image created by my brother, digital artist David Evans Bailey, which made things a lot easier.

It’s available in print or download at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fStoreID=2094709