This post
first appeared in Seekerville December 8, 2010.
Comments
are closed today as we enjoy a day to catch up on reading and writing.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re
thinking—this is an odd subject for someone who pushes the limits of romantic
passion in Christian fiction, but even I will admit there’s a grain of truth to
the statement that sometimes less is more.
For instance, in the case of spaghetti sauce, I learned the hard way that less—way less, to be exact—is definitely more. You see, I was only 22 and single and just learning to cook for myself, so I got this hankering one night for some homemade Italian meat sauce made from scratch. The recipe called for two cloves of chopped garlic, and yes, I was really this stupid—I thought a “clove” of garlic was a bulb of garlic. With all the flair of a naïve Julia Child, I chopped that sucker up until I had a mountain of garlic so high, it could have been in the Himalayas. I remember squinting at it thinking, “surely one is enough …”
As luck would have it, I only used one pile of garlic in the sauce … which I then proceeded to slow-cook overnight in the crock-pot … and then all day while I was at work. When I got home that night, my apartment smelled wonderful, teasing my salivatory glands with the promise of the world’s best spaghetti sauce. And it was—absolutely delicious—so I had several servings before I got ready to go to the theatre with my girlfriends. The moment I stepped foot in the car, my friends cranked their windows down with a collective gasp and shouted, “Omigosh, what in the world did you eat?” I told them I made my own spaghetti sauce, and when they found out how much garlic I used, they were rolling in their seats (heads out the windows, of course), quite certain that I was not only the world’s stupidest chef, but now also the stinkiest.
For instance, in the case of spaghetti sauce, I learned the hard way that less—way less, to be exact—is definitely more. You see, I was only 22 and single and just learning to cook for myself, so I got this hankering one night for some homemade Italian meat sauce made from scratch. The recipe called for two cloves of chopped garlic, and yes, I was really this stupid—I thought a “clove” of garlic was a bulb of garlic. With all the flair of a naïve Julia Child, I chopped that sucker up until I had a mountain of garlic so high, it could have been in the Himalayas. I remember squinting at it thinking, “surely one is enough …”
As luck would have it, I only used one pile of garlic in the sauce … which I then proceeded to slow-cook overnight in the crock-pot … and then all day while I was at work. When I got home that night, my apartment smelled wonderful, teasing my salivatory glands with the promise of the world’s best spaghetti sauce. And it was—absolutely delicious—so I had several servings before I got ready to go to the theatre with my girlfriends. The moment I stepped foot in the car, my friends cranked their windows down with a collective gasp and shouted, “Omigosh, what in the world did you eat?” I told them I made my own spaghetti sauce, and when they found out how much garlic I used, they were rolling in their seats (heads out the windows, of course), quite certain that I was not only the world’s stupidest chef, but now also the stinkiest.
What happened next was not pretty … or
sweet smelling, for that matter! We found our seats at the theatre, and as luck
would have it—bad luck—my seat was right next to this incredibly good-looking
guy who was sitting by himself. I can still hear my friends snickering that the
poor man would need a gas mask before the evening was done, so when he left at
intermission, everyone was certain he was gone for good. Unfortunately, I
wasn’t that lucky. Because when he came back, the hunk tapped me on the
shoulder and gave me a tentative smile … uh, right before he handed me a little
bottle of breath drops. “I thought you might need this,” he said quietly, loud
enough for my girlfriends to hear. Trust me, not only did I learn a valuable
lesson that night that sometimes more is less, I also learned that one’s
chances of making a good impression on a good-looking guy become WAY less—as in
“less” than nil—when one dabbles in garlic.
As an aspiring writer, it didn’t take
me long to figure out that sometimes in writing, “less” can also be “more.” For
instance, when it comes to heart-throbbing romantic passion, all one has to do
is glance at the CBA Bestseller List to see that a whole subgenre—Amish
Romance—has sprung up on this very philosophy.” Likewise, the ornate and
flowery “purple prose” of yesterday’s Victorian Romance with its abundance of
adjectives and adverbs, forced or ridiculous similes, alliteration and/or
clichés has long since given way to today’s cleaner, simpler style of writing
where less is definitely more.
Take it from a woman who edited her
original manuscript of A Passion Most Pure
from 726 pages to 443 pages—I have learned that the key to “less is more” is
revise, revise, revise. One of the most valuable things I gleaned from contests
was a simple statement made by a very wise judge who told me “the best writers
say the most in the fewest amount of words.” One of my favorite examples of
this has always been a line I read in a Nora Roberts’ book years ago called Irish Born: “They were lace-curtain
Irish, righteous as three popes.” Wow … in nine words, this woman gives you a
microcosm of the heroine’s Irish family. I was in awe of anyone who could say
so much in so few words, which means as an author who writes 500-page books, I
obviously have a long way to go! So for we long-winded types (ahem … like Ruthy
and me) and really every writer on the planet, most of the time “less” is
definitely “more,” because revisions and edits—sentence by sentence—are
essential to the rhythm and flow, clarity and impact of any novel, taking your
baby from less to more by editing it from more to less.
So, how do I personally do that? Well,
I have a number of tricks I’ve learned through contests, seminars, critique
partners, my fabulous copy editor at Revell, and just plain trial and error, so
I thought I’d share a few of those with you today. Ready? Here we go:
1.)
LESS adjectives/adverbs and MORE powerful verbs. When
you’re trying to convey a feeling it’s easy to throw in a bunch of adverbs and
adjectives to accomplish this. BUT, too many extra words can clutter and steal
the impact of a sentence and thereby, the scene, diminishing its power and in
the particular case of this scene of passion I’ve posted below from A Hope Undaunted, make it sound
like a cheap dime novel.
MORE ADJECTIVES/ADVERBS:
In a quick, harsh catch of her halting breath, he took her soft, pink mouth by lightening force, his gruff, late-day beard incredibly rough against her smooth and silky skin. A faint and quivering moan weakly left her quivering lips and all firm resistance was gone, achingly burned away by the fiery and hot heat of his touch, leaving her woefully weak and wanting. His hungry mouth moved wildly at will, no longer gentle and kind as he roughly kissed her, ravenous against the smooth, white curve of her soft and slender throat, the soft, tender flesh of her ear. With a deep and growling groan, he tightly pulled her achingly close with powerfully muscular arms, taking her mouth with a kiss surely prompted by the sheer will to take control.
SAME SCENE WITH LESS IS MORE:
In a catch of her breath, he took her mouth by force, his late-day beard rough against her skin. A faint moan escaped her lips and all resistance fled, burned away by the heat of his touch, leaving her weak and wanting. His mouth roamed at will, no longer gentle as he devoured her, ravenous against the smooth curve of her throat, the soft flesh of her ear. With a guttural groan, he jerked her close with powerful arms, consuming her mouth with a kiss surely driven by the sheer will to ravage.
2.)
Avoid overuse of names AND use direct-address names sparingly. When
I speak to people, I tend to say their names a lot because I want them to know
they are special, which is nice in the real world, but tends to get old in
novels. I’m grateful to my wonderful copy editor Barb Barnes who’s gone a long
way in curing me of this “more vs. less” tendency. Here’s an example of what I
mean from A Heart Revealed, exaggerated so you can see how annoying it can come become to repeat a
name two or three times in several paragraphs:
TOO MUCH DIRECT-ADDRESS/NAME REPETITION:
“Emma, Mrs. Peep loves you and wants you to be safe. She’ll watch your cats, she already told me so.”
“But I can’t,” Emma said.
The blue of Sean’s eyes steeled to gray as he peered at Emma, the flicker of a dormant temper in the hard muscles of his face. “I won’t stand here and argue with you, Emma. I’m not a volatile man, and you know that, but this is too important. Trust me on this—I will take you by force if I have to. So I suggest you pack your bags, while I warm up the soup. Do you understand?”
Emma nodded, and Sean moved down the hall where sunlight streamed into Emma’s kitchen.
“Sean!”
He turned, hands on his hips and a wariness in his eyes. “Yes, Emma?”“Thank you,” Emma whispered.
LESS IS MORE:
“Mrs. Peep loves you and wants you to be safe. She’ll watch your cats, she already told me so.” The blue of his eyes steeled to gray as he peered at her, the flicker of a dormant temper in the hard muscles of his face. “I won’t stand here and argue with you, Emma. I’m not a volatile man, and you know that, but this is too important. Trust me on this—I will take you by force if I have to. So I suggest you pack your bags while I warm up the soup.” He turned away, disappearing down the hall where sunlight streamed into her kitchen.
“Sean!”
He turned, hands on his hips and a wariness in his eyes. “Yes?”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
3.)
Avoid clichés and over-used phrases. When I was a travel
writer, one of the first lessons I learned was NEVER to use the word “beckon.”
Why? Because back then, it seemed almost every travel piece you read used the
word “beckon” as a “lure” to a given destination (i.e. Kauai beckons with
sugar-white sand and swaying palms). So, since I have been an author, I
couldn’t help but notice that there is one phrase that I see in almost every
book I read, including my first novel. It’s become SO obvious to me (and
readers, I’m sure), that I literally groan when I see it. The phrase? Here it
is—some variation of “his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes,” or “she smiled,
but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.” So, tell me—have you seen a version of
this phrase in any of the books you’ve written or read? I’m betting every one
of you has!
4.)
Use speaker attributions (he said, she said) sparingly and mix in beats instead
(actions to show whose speaking rather than a speaker attribution) as in this clip from my novel A Passion Denied.
TOO MANY SPEAKER ATTRIBUTIONS:
“Patrick, you’re tired, and you’ve been drinking. Come to bed, and we’ll discuss it in the morning,” she whispered.
“Did you kiss him?” he said.
“No, of course not!” she responded.
“Did he kiss you?” he asked again.
She gasped for breath.
“Answer me!” he screamed.“Yes!” she said.“Well, Mrs. O’Connor, and how do I compare?” he asked.
LESS IS MORE:
“Patrick, you’re tired, and you’ve been drinking. Come to bed, and we’ll discuss it in the morning.”
“Did you kiss him?”
“No, of course not!”
“Did he kiss you?”
She gasped for breath.
He gripped her arm and shook her. “Answer me!”“Yes!”His eyes glittered like ice. “Well, Mrs. O’Connor, and how do I compare?”
5.)
I ALWAYS avoid sentences longer than three lines. This
is a little rule of thumb that I use constantly, eyeballing sentences that take
up more than three typed lines. When I see this in the editing phase, I
immediately pare the sentence down. Following are some before and after
examples from A Hope Undaunted of my copy as originally written, followed by the pared-down version:
Here’s
a sentence in which I eliminated eight words by deleting unnecessary phrasing
(which I underlined) for what I think is a cleaner, sharper sentence.
The door
slammed behind them, and Katie found herself racing to catch up with
Betty as she marched down the glossy wooden hall lined with closed
doors, high heels clunking like a small army.
The door
slammed behind them, and Katie raced to catch up as Betty marched down the
glossy wooden hall, high heels clunking like a small army.
No
amount of paring down is too small. Here’s an example of eliminating one
unnecessary word because it’s already understood.
“You jump
higher than Luke does when I sneak up on him.”
“You jump
higher than Luke when I sneak up on him.”
Phrases
of three words can often be pared down to one or two words as seen in these two
examples where I cut the underlined words for the final copy:
Both
words and air pasted to the roof of Sean’s mouth as his eyes flipped
open, glazed in shock at the picture of Mr. Kelly looming in the
door, slack-jawed at the sight of Sean holding Rose in his lap.
Words pasted
to the roof of Sean’s mouth as his eyes flipped open, glazed in shock as Mr.
Kelly loomed in the door, slack-jawed over Rose in his lap.
A Heart Revealed
Phrases
and words that are understood can always be eliminated, such as these I’ve
underlined:
ORIGINAL COPY:
Bobby
screeched to a stop, his spindly chest heaving from his sprint to catch
up with Sean. Twenty feet
behind him, his mother was walking at a brisk pace, obviously hot
on his heels.
In
the second edit, I eliminated the underlined phrases above because they were
already understood from the action in the scene and, of course, the phrase
“hustled at a brisk pace” is redundant since it’s understood by the phrase “hot
on his heels.”
1ST EDITED VERSION:
Bobby
screeched to a stop, spindly chest heaving from his sprint to catch up.
Twenty feet behind, his mother hustled at a brisk pace, obviously
hot on his heels.
FINAL VERSION:
Bobby
screeched to a stop, spindly chest heaving. His mother hustled twenty feet
beyond, hot on his heels.
6.) Did
you know that you can eliminate the word “that” most of the time? Such
as in “Did you know you can eliminate the word “that” like you did in this
sentence? When I cut A Passion Most Pure
down, one of the ways I did it was by going through the entire book and
eliminating every “that” that I could … uh, I mean eliminating every “that” I
could … J Here’s another example from A Heart Revealed.
Clara shook
her head as she watched the newlyweds duck into the taxi that was
waiting at the curb.
Clara shook
her head, watching the newlyweds duck into the taxi waiting at the curb.
So there you have it—ways I go for
“less” to achieve copy that’s hopefully “more.” Now it’s YOUR turn. Post a
before and after of one of your sentences that you’ve pared down or give me one
or two of your lanky sentences, and let’s see what we can do with it, okay?
Everybody who comments is eligible to win their choice of any of my signed
books or a top CBA book chosen from the list I am offering.
And remember—in writing especially,
less is usually more—a lesson I obviously have yet to learn given the length of
today’s blog. Sigh.
Hugs,
Julie
GIVEAWAY!!
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Hugs,
Julie
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