Avoid Putting Asides In Your Stories (Without Careful Consideration, At Least)

It can sometimes be difficult to get information directly to the audience. After all, you can show them an entire scene, describe everything perfectly, and insinuate the threads you want them to weave together, but there will still be some folks who just don't get it. A common device used in stage productions, and even in some TV shows, is the Aside; those times when a character will speak directly to the audience, usually voicing unspoken thoughts that aren't heard by the rest of the characters onstage or in the scene with them.

 

While asides are a viable tool, it's important to ask yourself if it's the right tool to bring across the proper feeling for your story. Because like a lot of other things adapted from more visual mediums, it can often backfire when you try to use it in text.

 

Sometimes you don't need to swing a hammer, you know?

 

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Should You Set Asides To The Side?

We've all read fiction where we have the protagonist (or at least the point of view character) talking directly to us. Sometimes it's direct 4th wall breaking, like we see in Deadpool or She Hulk comic books, but other times it's just reading the direct thoughts of the protagonist in the form of an inner monologue. And while this is an established way of doing things, it's worth asking if this is the way you want your book to read.

 

It's all about the tone, here...

 

The main reason this is worth asking yourself is because asides have a tendency of cutting through tension, and giving you a method to tell your audience what's happening in your character's own words, rather than trying to show it through descriptions and actual dialogue. And while that can be expedient, it can also make it more difficult to take a story seriously, or to build proper tension.

For this reason it's important to consider what the benefits of an aside are in your story, what the drawbacks are, and how naturally an aside slips into your narration.

 

For instance, if you're writing a story from a first-person perspective, then asides will feel pretty natural even if they don't take the form of dialogue. On the other hand, having asides in third-person requires a third-person omniscient perspective, or for the asides to come from the narrator, as who else would have the ability to see into the minds of the cast in order to deliver these asides to the reader?

 

The key question you need to ask is how do you want to limit your readers' access to information, or present them with particular perspectives? Because if you are getting asides from the POV character, but no one else, you're still limited to their perspective, which can allow you to keep certain facts behind the curtain, so to speak, until they're presented in prose or dialogue. If you are able to present asides from different characters as the narrator, this can be used to enhance dread or tragedy as the reader sees the big picture, but also knows that the characters don't. And asides can also be used to tell jokes, turning the tool itself into a form of comedy.

This last is actually one of the most common uses for asides in books, and it's for that reason it isn't always advisable to use them. Because it can sometimes be difficult to deliver an aside without it feeling like a joke. Even if you have a literal Greek chorus that's intoning doom and tragedy, making an aside that straight-faced can also feel like a joke... and if that's not your intent, it can be a serious problem.

 

So, to reiterate the thrust of today's post, asides are a perfectly functional tool. So is a 12-pound sledgehammer. And in a task requiring that tool, and its lack of subtlety, it's absolutely the right choice for the job. If it isn't, though, then it's probably a better idea to use a tool with more finesse in order to get the job done.

 

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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Environmental Storytelling (A Study In Subtly Interacting With Your Audience)

The warrior entered the ancient chamber. The wind sang across the stones, and the light from his lantern danced across carvings from an age forgotten by history. Figures descended into the Earth carrying fire and steel, and never emerged again. Something cracked beneath his step, and he looked down. The brittle bones of an armored skeleton were spread across the floor. The dead warrior lay on their belly, one arm outstretched toward mouth of the chamber, and the sky beyond. The living warrior strode past, continuing deeper.

He found more bones. More broken armor and shattered weapons. All of them had their faces turned back toward the sun, their arms grasping for something they would never again feel.

If you've listened to any discourse about film, video games, or even art in general, then chances are you've heard of the concept of environmental storytelling. While it's more challenging to do in writing prose, that doesn't mean this concept can't be useful... especially if you're someone who has had a problem with showing rather than telling your audience what you want them to see.

When details can be important, but you want that importance to be subtle.

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When The Environment Adds To The Narrative

The idea behind environmental storytelling is that aspects of the environment that your reader (or viewer, or player) enters contribute to their understanding of what is going on without you explaining what it means directly.

As an example, take the introductory passage above. The presence of the warriors who came before is a bit of creep to add to the scene, yes, but all of the corpses appear to have been trying to escape from the end of the tunnel. Does that mean the monster down there allowed them to leave, but only once they were too wounded to be a threat? Is there a poisoned air in the cavern below that takes a while to kill those exposed to it? Or were these warriors meant to be human sacrifices, and those who tried to leave were killed by guards above?

We don't know... but just stating this detail as a fact puts it into the reader's mind. It shows them something about the environment, but without explaining the meaning (in the moment, at least). This primes the reader to be looking for an explanation, or to seek out something to make the earlier passage make sense. As such, they're going to be paying close attention as they look for further clues.

Everything is part of the environment... everything.

Another example is something that would make sense in the world of gaming... where the environment is something players have to actively interact with to understand the unfolding narrative.

Say that in the palace there is a small shrine near the Hall of Kings. A headless statue of a huge man sits with its hands out as if to hold a blade, but there is no sword there. A plaque simply reads, "In memory of the Lion Prince." Who is this? What does it mean? Well, we don't know, but again, that's added to the ongoing narrative as something that exists in this world. Then as the characters travel and explore the world further, they find an order of knights who all wear stylized helms in the shape of roaring lions. It is tradition for these knights to never remove their helms, or to let others gaze upon their faces. As the narrative goes on, a player may find that a particular sword has been handed down among the masters of this order... a sword of huge size that was purportedly wielded by their founder, who came from the West bearing many wounds. Those who see this sword may note that it is made of the same star steel carried by the royal family of the nation their quest began in to this very day. This implies, even if the narrative doesn't outright state it, that the Lion Prince left the land he was born to, traveled far to the East, and became the head of an order of warriors who adopted his heraldry, fighting style, and personal honor code.

Now, in a game, this could be left in the background as an Easter egg for players to discover if they wish to. But in a film, a novel, and so on, the mystery of the missing prince (and any possible legacy he may have left behind) should be part of the story you're trying to tell. It doesn't necessarily need to be the A plot of your book, but a strong B or C plot is probably a good idea.

A Light Touch Goes A Long Way

Environmental storytelling places a lot of trust in your audience. It expects them to be curious, to analyze what they read or see, and to dig down beneath the surface and connect dots. However, not everyone is going to pick up what you're laying down, which is why it's important to have a character to summarize important points once revelations happen, or events are set in motion.

A good way to think about environmental storytelling is to consider it in terms of a mystery. All the clues should be there in the text, and present for your reader to pick up on. Whether it's pry marks around a lock, or a spat of mud high on a wall where it shouldn't be, or a bruise on a body that hints at foul play or secret abuse, the clues to figure out what happened should be on the page for your readers to see as they follow along with the detective. And when the scene happens where everyone is brought into the drawing room, and the detective reveals the mystery, the audience can follow the clues (and understand the meaning) as they're laid out.

The difference is that with environmental storytelling in general, your reader might be the only one trying to deduce what's happening. Still, the clues need to be present, because that is how you get active readers to follow your breadcrumbs!

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Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

To Help Show Instead of Tell, Nix Your Internal Monologues

One of the oldest pieces of writing advice out there is, "Show, don't tell." If you're a writer you've probably seen this in every style guide, heard it from most of your creative writing teachers, and seen it mentioned in blogs just like this one. The problem is that this writing proverb (because that's really what it is) doesn't offer a lot of concrete ways to actually do what it's suggesting.

As such I thought I'd make a suggestion for this week... cut out your internal monologues. Or, if you can't cut them out entirely, keep them short, simple, and to-the-point.

I remember it was 1917 the first time I heard that name...

Don't Make Your Book Feel Like a Recipe Blog

Since quarantine began I, like everyone else, have been doing far more cooking than I ever actually did before. And since I have a sweet tooth I wanted to find something tasty I could make without causing my waistline to swell, since I'm doing home workouts instead of going to the gym these days. When I put up a recipe in Creamy Yogurt Jello: An Ideal Dessert For Those Looking To Lose Weight, all the commenters who saw it said the same thing.

"This looks really good. Thank you for not putting up some story about your family tradition when all we wanted was the recipe!"

 

My grandmother first taught me this when I was 17 and dating my first girlfriend...

I had seen the memes and jokes about how any time you try to find a simple recipe for homemade cornbread or peach cobbler that you always had to wade through paragraphs of fluff about how the author first learned to make this recipe as a child, or about some traumatic life event that gave birth to a new family tradition. I thought it was exaggerated... for those not used to searching through cooking blogs looking for recipes, there is no exaggeration. Several sites I visited literally had a "Skip To The Recipe" button on top that automatically bypassed 3/4 of the page to get to the part that mattered.

Internal monologues can end up like that; a big, bloated, ponderous read that might be interesting under the right circumstances, but which kills the pace and frustrates the reader.

 

Show Us The Reaction

The key thing about "Show, Don't Tell" is that it's about insinuation. It's when you paint the audience a picture, and lead them to draw conclusions. You do this through atmosphere, tone, and by narrating events that happen, but not by opening up someone's head and just giving the audience a Shakespearian aside.

Give you an example. Take the following exchange:

"Hey Jake," Marjorie said.

Oh God, I thought. She's talking to me... she's really talking to me! Be cool, don't worry, it's fine. Say something smooth. Don't stare! You're staring, shit, open your mouth and get it in gear!

 

"You mind if I get past you, here?" she asked.

"Huh?" I managed. "Oh, yeah, no problem."

That was smooth, guy. Real smooth.

Does this work? Sure, it conveys the sense of nervous panic of our protagonist screwing up a social interaction. It's clumsy, though, and it doesn't offer any nuance or set dressing... it's just telling the audience exactly what the lead is thinking in his own words.

For contrast, try the following.

"Hey Jake," Marjorie said.

My heart hammered, thumping in my ears. I swallowed, hoping it might quiet the noise in my head a bit. I turned, smiling, but when I tried to say something my mouth had gone completely dry. I coughed, trying to clear my throat.

"Sorry," I finally managed. "What do you need?"

"Could I get past you?" she said, pointing with one lacquered nail at the space just down the narrow hall.

"Huh?" I followed where she was pointing. I felt the flush creeping up my neck, and tried not to think about it. That just made it worse. "Oh, yeah, no problem."

This description is a little melodramatic, but it gets the point across. Our protagonist, whoever he is, comes completely undone when Marjorie is near him. But rather than just giving the audience the soundtrack of Jake's panicked mind, we get to see the reaction he has to her presence. We can make the connection easily enough without being told by Jake's own running monologue what he's thinking.

If You Need To Tell, Put It In Dialogue

Not every internal monologue is related to a social situation like this, though. Sometimes these monologues are used as a way to information dump important plot elements. Maybe it's the ghost story behind a particular abandoned house, a traumatic experience a character had as a child, or a complicated relationship they have with another character.

If you absolutely need to say something directly to the audience, try putting it in dialogue between two or more characters. It tends to make things flow a lot more organically, and you usually cut out a lot of needless detail when you force yourself to frame information in the context of speech.

Just have them talk... trust me, it works a lot better.

Take some of the following examples:

- "You're seriously not scared of this place, are you?" Jack asked. He held up his hands, wiggling his fingers and widening his eyes. "Who's that crossing my threshold? Whose blood do I smell?"

- I held up the report, frowning as I read over the pertinent details. "Rachel, they're not serious about this, are they? The suspect had 12 witnesses and a video call showing they were out of town. It's open and shut!"

- "Look, I know you and your dad have had your problems in the past," Jennie said. "But he's really tried to change. Just take the weekend, and give him a chance?"

Each of these gives the reader a clue to the nature of what's going on in the story, without bogging them down with unnecessary details. Because sure, the full ghost story about Bloody Charlie might be important to the narrative overall, but it will be way better if it's told in dialogue around a campfire, or during a power outage in a different scene. The full police report being referenced might have a lot of names, times, and information, but if it's not pertinent right then and there you don't need to have the detective mentally read it for the audience. The character with the rough relationship with their dad might have been abused or neglected, or just had a falling out over differences of opinion... unless it's absolutely necessary to give full details for context in that moment (and it almost never is), just tell the reader the important bit (Jake is scared of a ghost story, the case against a character is very flimsy, there's a bad history at work), and move on.

Think of It Like a Play

If you've never written for stage and screen, it's an activity that can put a fine edge on your craft. Because you have to use set details, lighting, direction, action, and dialogue to put things on display for the audience. Sometimes characters will monologue, but often you need the audience to realize deeper implications by having them witness expressions, tone, emotion, and behavior.

That sort of thing is a crash course in showing, instead of telling.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my short story collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Character Appearance and Personality: Tips For Showing Instead of Telling

I try to talk a lot about inclusion here on my blog, firstly because I want to help people avoid making writing mistakes, and secondly because it's a smart move on your part to make sure you keep your potential audience as wide as possible. And though this is a topic I've touched on before in posts like How To Write A Strong Female Character, there are just certain mistakes that a lot of writers keep making when they try to bring characters onto the page when they don't share a lived experience with them.

But... what is she WEARING?

If you haven't read the guest post 5 Mistakes Male Authors Make When Writing Female Characters, I highly recommend you do so. It has invaluable information in it for a lot of us out there. Today, though, I want to focus on one of the mistakes this article mentioned that crops up a lot when it comes to female characters written by men in general, but it's a mistake that shows up a lot when the author has no experience to rely on when bringing a character across that I see a lot.

Using someone's appearance to imply their personality.

Books and Covers

As Savannah Cordova points out in the above article, this is an age-old trick used by men who have trouble writing women; they simply describe the character looking a certain way, and use that description to imply who she is as a person so save time and effort. Whether it's her wild mane of raven hair, or the glint of mischief in her eyes, or the defiant way she folds her arms; all of this is meant to convey who she is in an instant. This trick goes back at least as far as the pulps and short story magazines, where authors didn't have the page space to waste on big exposition or establishing shots, because they had plot to get to.

A specter in black, with a grim expression and a devil's fire in his eyes.

But if you stop and think about it, this trick is both really lazy, and sort of creepy. Most of us have literally been taught our entire lives not to judge people based on the way they look, and manipulating your audience to do that can come across as creepy. Especially when they catch you doing it, and get annoyed that your manipulation is so obvious.

Showing Is Facts In Action

A lot of writers who rely on this lazy trick defend it by saying they're showing the audience who someone is instead of telling them... but really, you're not. You're just pointing at an object at rest, and using description to lead the audience to a certain conclusion. That's just telling disguised as showing, and you're not doing yourself any favors. In fact, it's actually a lot easier to just dispense with the complicated subterfuge, and focus on really showing your audience who a character is.

All right, boys, show 'em we mean business!

You need your audience to judge your characters by their actions, instead of by their appearance. To that end, if you want to establish a character is a certain way, you need to show them acting that way to confirm that it's actually who they are. That way it's not just hearsay; we have evidence to back up our knowledge.

As an example, don't describe a woman's business attire and end it there; show how she conducts herself. Does she have a firm handshake and eye contact? Does she walk with confidence, overriding objections smoothly during negotiations? Is she aggressive, or stoic? If we see her later does she conduct herself the same way she does when she's at the office, or is the persona we've witnessed part of the face she wears for business? Or is the only thing that changes her choice of more sensible shoes and a leather jacket instead of a blazer?

The same is true for almost any aspect of a character. If you want to establish they're strong, show them lifting something heavy with ease. If you want to let us know they're a capable fighter, show them get into a scrape with someone. If you need the audience to know this character is smart, showing them doing something that requires them using their intelligence (playing chess is a favorite, as is hacking into computers, or talking about quantum physics before realizing no one else in the room can understand them).

What you should not do is just use inflammatory adjectives to get your point across; show your characters doing things, and present them as objectively as you can. A little flavor here and there is good for your prose, but make sure you're not using it in place of presenting your audience with facts to draw their conclusions from.

The Deductive Approach

There is an alternative approach to always showing your characters in action, but it's something that needs to be handled very carefully. Because you can sprinkle hints into a character's description to give your audience clues about who they are, and what they're like, but the key is that these hints need to be facts about the character, and the deductive implications of those facts.

It's elementary, really...

If you've ever read a Sherlock Holmes story, then you've seen how Conan Doyle laid this all out for the reader. Holmes takes the facts of a situation, and then deduces meaning from them. You don't have to get as intricate as the great detective, but you do need to follow the same kind of logic.

As an example, say you're meeting a character for the first time. He's dressed in an expensive suit and seems friendly, but what do the details about him in this scene say? Well, the college ring on his hand says West Point, so we can deduce where he went to school. His palm is calloused despite his expensive clothes, the pattern implying that he practices regularly with handguns. A Texan drawl tells us where he grew up, or at least where he's lived long enough to acquire an accent. The scent of cigars tells us he's a smoker, the particular odor saying they're mid-range in price, and the faintness implying it's not a regular indulgence.

Now, we haven't seen this character actually do anything, but each of these little clues has given us a bit of insight about who he might be behind the tie, and it fleshes him out. I talked about this over on my gaming blog in the entry Do Clothes Make The Adventurer, as well, if you're looking for more examples for how to imply a character's history through these little details. Generally speaking, though, you're looking for things like tattoos, cultural markings, voice tics, scars, and even tan lines, and providing context for the reader to help them draw the right conclusions. It takes work, and it's a tough habit to get used to, but it's a great deal less problematic than just using leading descriptions and hoping your audience goes along with the railroading.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

How to Avoid the Dreaded Exposition Dump

Every story needs exposition; there's no way around it. Whether you're writing a gritty, modern thriller in the heart of New York City, or your tale takes place in a fanciful kingdom several worlds away, you need to explain to your audience just what the hell is going on. Without at least a minimally set scene it doesn't matter how great or lovingly you rendered the world; your story won't make sense.

Which way did it go George, which way did it go?

The necessity of exposition has, unfortunately, led to what most people refer to as the exposition dump. This is when writers decide to break all of their action around page five or so (earlier in short stories) in order to shoe horn in a bunch of facts that the reader probably needs to know in order to translate the world, but which have the effect of an anvil dropped from a great height. Some readers might slog through the dump in order to get to the rest of the story, but a lot of them won't.

Fortunately, if you're willing to roll up your sleeves and fire up the backhoe, we can turn this dump into a cleverly camouflaged piece of scenery that's just as effective.

Tip #1: If They Don't Need to Know, Don't Tell Them

Because examples work best, I'll use one to illustrate this point. About a year ago I was invited to participate in an anthology called "Sidekicks" (great book, check it out here), and I wrote a short story titled "Relic of the Red Planet". The simple plot is that in a futuristic, space opera sort of world a collector of rare, alien artifacts has been murdered. His granddaughter enlists the help of an old friend, adventurer and antiquarian Galatea Jones. For backup Galatea calls in a favor from her friend, Martian gun-for-hire Doomsday Blues. Using a public auction as bait to lure out the murderers, whom Galatea suspects were trying to steal a secret part of the dead man's collection, mayhem ensues. When the dust settles, our heroes are victorious.

Now, the story itself is a simple little mystery told in about 5,000 words or so. I could very easily have confused the story, and completely hammered my readers, by including a bunch of extraneous details that, while they would have made the world clearer, simply didn't matter to this particular telling. For instance, did the reader need to know that all of the "aliens" were genetically modified humans designed for life on the more hostile planets of the solar system many thousands of years ago? No, not really. Did I need to make a big deal about what year in the future it was, or how planets like Venus had been altered to support life? Nope. Did I have to explain how interplanetary travel was so advanced? Not in the slightest. All I needed to do was focus on the essentials, which is what I did.

It was just like this. Except with ray guns and aliens.

When writing a story, any story, look at what is essential to understanding the world. You, as the creator, need to know all of it. But if you're loading down a story with a bunch of extraneous material that really doesn't matter, consider cutting it out in favor of keeping the story going.

Tip #2: Show, Don't Tell

I've said it before (right here in this post, in fact), writers should show readers a scene whenever possible. Not only does it keep the story flowing, but it will camouflage the fact that readers have been given critical information. It's kind of like dicing up vegetables and putting them in something tasty so that kids will eat them without even knowing they were there.

Here's a quick example for you. Say you're writing a high fantasy series, and in this series there's an order of knights known as the Foresworn. Now, the important back story might be that these knights are all noble warriors who have fallen from the kingdom's grace, and they are considered persona non grata by the populace at large. They're given suicide missions, and those who survive may once more attain their former rank and earn forgiveness for whatever sins they've committed. Take it a step further, and say that the order is made up of men and women, with ranks and symbols that include death's heads, weighted scales, and black wings.

Being this guy is enough to warrant a life sentence.

Now, assume for a moment that the reader needs to understand some of that in order to grasp why these characters are important. You could go and give an account of how the Foresworn were formed, and list out what each mark of rank means. But why do that when you can just show us a member, and let us draw our own conclusions? Maybe the representative you give us is a big man with a stubbled jaw and greasy hair. Despite his brusque manner and brutish appearance though, his weapons are immaculate and he fights in a way only someone born and trained to war can do. That single action sequence would show us what members are capable of, without the writer having to talk the knights up.

If a single glance isn't enough, then drop a few more hints. Have someone ask him what act he committed to be stripped of rank and title, perhaps. This would let the reader know that despite the armor, and even his birth, the warrior is not considered nobility any longer. Maybe have a member of this organization mention in conversation with her fellows that she's only got two more missions until redemption. These three things give the reader a solid grasp of who the Foresworn are, especially when combined with their name. No matter how cool the history of the order is, or how epic the first knights who began it were, if the readers don't need to know it, see Tip #1.

Tip #3: It's a Bird, It's a Plane... It's Exposition Man!

If you must tell the reader something, then it's best for the statements to come out of your characters' mouths. Cue Exposition Man! By day a humble pathologist, psychologist, neighborhood baker, or dope peddler, but as soon as he comes into contact with protagonists he simply cannot resist the urge to spew forth plot-related details just as quickly as they can ask questions!

You know, it's funny you should ask...

Exposition Man is something of a trope, but he/she/it can often be a very useful plot device. What he does is deliver key information to the reader in such a way that it looks like two characters having a conversation. When done properly Exposition Man has every right to know the things he/she knows about the world and plot, so when the talking trope decides to open up about the goings on of the local crime boss, or expound on the different oaths the Monks of the Eternal Silence supposedly take, the reader doesn't balk and demand to know why they're being made to read pages of text.

Tip #4: Spread it Out

Exposition is hard work. You have to know what you want the reader to know, and you have to dress it up in a way that's pleasing to the eye and easy for the mind to take in. Doing all of that at once is not easy, and in fact it can give you a mental hernia.

Pictured: A wild metaphor in its natural environment.

Don't try to tell your reader absolutely everything up front. For one thing, it creates an information overload that can read like an essay rather than a novel. Secondly, if you actually expect readers to remember content that took place on page 5-7, then said content needs to be short and snappy in order to claim brain space. If you put a guide to your world there, no matter how necessary it might be, readers aren't going to remember it. They sure as hell aren't going to flip back and look things up, either.

In the end, too much spice will spoil your story. Spread your exposition out, and ask yourself how much of it is necessary at this very moment. If you can cut down on exposition in a scene without losing anything, do so. If something is necessary, find a way to include it. If it's something you just think is cool but would need an entire flashback, side conversation, or out-of-nowhere discussion to even bring up, chances are you don't need it.


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"Sexy" and Other Words Writers Need to Stop Using

As an author who doesn't have his own marketing department, I tend to use a lot of social media. This means I belong to a lot of promotional groups on Facebook, I follow a lot of writer-themed blogs on Tumblr, and in general I try to stay plugged into what my fellows in the field are doing. The advantage is that sometimes I find really intriguing books, such as the Gonji trilogy by Ted Rypel, or Ghosts in the Yew by Blake Hausladen.

Because holy damn, that's why.

The disadvantage is that my feed gets crammed with promotion for a lot of books I'd really rather not see. Books that, when I pause to read the description, give me barking fits. After destroying a dozen chew toys and getting a calming belly rub though, I finally figured out what all these bad book summaries I keep seeing have in common. It isn't genre, it isn't plot, and it isn't even the target audience. It's the shallowness of the language used to describe the story.

Huh?

That's what I thought you were going to say. Since examples tend to work best, and I don't want to name names and earn the enmity of fellow authors, I will give you a paraphrased version that I keep seeing over and over again. It goes something like this.

Sexy female lead, getting involved in a dangerous or personally distressing situation, must seek help and join forces with sexy, alpha male lead. Will the two of them find the answer, and will their raging libidos get the best of them?

If you don't feel this is an epidemic then I urge you to go to your local bookstore and read some dust jackets. Romance, erotica, mystery, thriller, suspense, modern fantasy, classic fantasy, science fiction, it's showing up everywhere. The pacing might be slightly different, the plots might vary, but there are certain buzzwords that are showing up repeatedly. This is a plea to my fellow authors, and a warning to future ones; stop it. You're making us look stupid.

What's Wrong With Sexy?

As a concept, not a damn thing. Some genres are predicated entirely upon telling sexy stories about sexy people. The problem is the word itself. What is sexy? I guarantee you that whatever you're thinking, the next person to pick up the book and read the same sentence will not be thinking the same thing. It's lazy writing, pure and simple.

What is it that makes someone an alpha male?

Don't get ahead of me, stock photo philosopher. The term alpha (it's just assumed that the character is male, which goes to show we need more alpha females in our fiction) has the same problem from a completely different angle. What is an alpha? Is it a man involved in the leather and BDSM scene? Is it a wolves-of-Wall-Street type in a ten thousand dollar suit with a watch that cost more than most people's cars? Or is he a muscle-bound noble savage, free from the constraints of your society who makes his own rules? Those are just three images that came to mind off the top of my head, and there are likely a dozen more where they came from.

So What Do You Suggest?

I'm glad you asked that, bolded, italic type face. My suggestion for all my fellow authors out there is when you're coming up with your dust jacket hook that you cut the fluff. Language that tells us nothing about the characters, or is misleading, sensational, or flat out lazy needs to go. Period. It's the modern day equivalent of saying "and she meets a tall, dark stranger." Even if she does (or he, let's be inclusive here), could we perhaps come up with a better reason for us to care? Do a little more showing, a lot less telling?

What more do you want?

I want character descriptions that tell us who we're actually dealing with. I want robust language that draws me in and makes me want more. Honestly I'd prefer if writers stopped trying to be edgy and let their stories speak for themselves, but I'm not asking for miracles. Mostly I'd like a carefully crafted hook that makes me sit on an uncomfortable floor in a bookstore for hours just to find out what happens. What I want to see less of is writers using empty shorthand to convince me that these characters are different from every other pair in the genre. I'm also tired of my fellow writers showing off their leads' toned abs and curvy hips just to persuade me to buy their books. I have the Internet, I can see all the sexy I want any time on demand. What the Internet isn't providing me with are deep characters that inspire me, and whose stories I genuinely care about.

Next time you're describing your plot or your characters, sit down and ask yourself how you'd feel describing real people this way. Is the most noticeable feature of a dedicated, hard-nosed police detective that she's sexy? Or is it that she takes dangerous assignments and never quits until the job is done? Is the most dominant personality trait of a business tycoon that he's mysterious? If so, you might need to dig a bit deeper because you've only scratched the surface. If there is more to them, then show us. Give us an elevator pitch that makes us skip our floor.


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