The Things I Repeat. ;)
I haven’t been posting as frequently. I’ve been away from the parchment. It’s true. Unfortunately blogging isn’t my career. But I have still had thoughts! And in the little space I have had, I have been focused on my… statue? Mountain? Novel.
I look at statues and wonder how long it took to smooth them out. Sure, the captured image is beautiful. The bust is impressive. But I’ve broken stone. I’ve felt the great gouges and unforgiving shale. But, looking down on me, is a face of skin so smooth it might just lift to smile at me. I wonder how long it took.
At this point my novel, Godmarked, feels like a towering marble endeavor. It's a mountain side turned to shape. The more I have poured into it, the larger and larger it has become. When I sit beneath it, its long shadow blocks out anything else. But despite that all-consuming nature – I’m struggling to polish it. I want my story to flow smoothly. I want the images that I am crafting to lift lifelike from the page. I feel like I’m sanding stone with stone. I might be at this for a while.
Considering the challenge, I thought it would be good to spend a pause reflecting on what I’ve been consistently correcting in my own work. Writing is an exercise. Bad form produces poor results. Thankfully, unlike physical exercise, the bad form doesn’t run the risk of bodily injury. Because at this point, I’d probably be hospitalized if it did.
I’ve identified three key corrections I make again and again. These are the things I repeat:
“Seemed to”: this is an ode to the lazy brain. Even though I write at the pace of an inspired snail I am still, unfortunately, a lazy snail. Somehow, despite my ambition AND glacial pace I fall into the “seemed to” trap repeatedly. The sunrise seemed to glow. Her face seemed to fall. So time and time again I sand away the unnecessary. The sunrise glowed. Her face fell. Nothing is more unnecessary than “Seemed to.”
“He/She Said”: Do you know how many speaking verbs there are? Well over 100. Do I use them? No. Why? I cannot tell you. Writing dialogue is not something that comes naturally to me, and by using “he said” has been a crutch. It’s like drawing an outline without color. The result is heavily descriptive prose, and a strawman for dialogue. It's ugly. I am not ashamed to say that my editing effort has leaned heavily on a thesaurus. There are so many fun verbs to add color. Words like growled, blurted, and jabbered.
“Smiled.” Maybe this isn’t so much of a bad thing. But realistically people only smile so much. In fact, it's likely that people living with medieval technologies and medicines smiled far less than I am giving them credit for. It's a funny thing – but I am finding that this is also lazy writing. Communication and reactions are vast. Smiles are rarer than we think. So I am using my smiles more sparingly. I also use “felt” too much to describe emotions. So, “he felt tired, but smiled.” Cue eye roll
In relentless pursuit of brevity, I am tackling the above and more with the understanding that the effort I put in will, over time, smooth the stone. I think of the years I have spent crafting this monolith. As tedious as sanding it may be, the result should hopefully speak for itself.
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