Writer Unboxed

If you missed part 1 of WU’s interview with Dave King, click HERE, then come on back. Dave’s not only a professional editor, he’s the co-author of the must-have book, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print. We’re honored to have him with us.

In this part of our interview, we talk about managing backstory, choosing a POV, adverbs, and the secret to good dialogue. Enjoy!

Part 2: Interview with Dave King

Q: You want your readers to know something, but you don’t want to bog them down with a lot of backstory narrative, so you find a way - clever, you think-of inserting the info into a conversation. How do you know if you’ve fallen into the exposition-disguised-as-dialog trap, and what are the solutions for getting out of it?

DK: Ah, yes. “Come, let us engage in further expository dialogue.”

Probably the best sign that you’ve fallen into this particular trap is that you lose track of your characters. Your people start talking out of character, or paying attention to details they wouldn’t normally notice — in short, they stop being people and instead become vehicles of information. That’s when you know you’re in trouble. Of course, it’s hard to see when you’re in the throes of creation, which is why looking at your manuscript with fresh eyes is such a good idea.

The easiest way to get out of the trap is to cut the information you’re trying to convey and see if it’s really needed. Often it’s not, though it sometimes takes some courage to leave it out. I’m currently reading An Antic Disposition, a medieval mystery by Alan Gordon, who creates a sense of the middle ages very effectively because he refrains from explaining every little detail. For instance, one of his characters mentions in passing that the various contenders for the throne of Denmark didn’t want to drag Barbarossa in and have him tell them what to do. A lesser writer would have explained at length that Frederick Barbarossa was the Holy Roman Emperor and, as such, was the one to whom the king of Denmark would have pledged fealty, even though the king (like most kings) preferred to feel he was independent. But readers don’t really need to know this in order to follow the story, and by not explaining a detail that everyone in the twelfth century would have already known, Gordon leaves his readers feeling they’re really there.

Q: First person, third person and omniscient POV. Is there a best choice depending on story type? What can help a writer to make the POV decision?

DK: I would never say categorically that, for instance, ‘Thou shalt use first person for chick lit.’ In general, though, there are advantages and disadvantages to each point of view. It’s easier for a beginning writer to create narrative intimacy in the first person, so stories that depend on reader sympathy with the main character (romances or coming-of-age novels, for instance) tend toward first person. Stories that depend on readers’ not discovering things the main character already knows (mysteries, say, or thrillers) tend toward third, since it’s easier to hide stuff from your readers when you can jump from head to head.

On the other hand, Jane Austen wrote brilliant romances largely in the omniscient POV, and Agatha Christie did a fine job hiding facts from the reader in first person in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. As I often tell my clients, your mileage may vary.

Q: Do you think pros are a little hard on the use of adverbs in stories? Should every adverb be banned from a manuscript? (Truly?)

DK: “You must always cut –ly adverbs,” he said dictatorially.

“You must always cut –ly adverbs,” he said self-righteously.

“You must always cut –ly adverbs,” he said knowingly.

“You must always cut –ly adverbs,” he said sarcastically.

Compare these to:

“Cut the –ly adverbs!”

“As an independent editor with twenty years’ experience, I can say with confidence that you must cut –ly adverbs.”

“You must always cut –ly adverbs,” he said.

“You must always cut –ly adverbs,” he said sarcastically.

The first two examples use the dialogue itself to show what the –ly adverb conveys. In the third, the –ly doesn’t add anything and isn’t missed. But note that, in the fourth, you need it — there’s really no better way to show the contrast between the words and the intent with which they’re said.

The moral: -ly adverbs have their place, but more often than not, you can find a more effective substitute.

Q: Besides adverbs, what else should writers look out for?

DK: Any mention of an emotion. Again, there are times when talking about your character’s emotions is the right thing to do, but those times don’t come up very often. It’s far more likely that, if you mention an emotion, you’re telling your readers what you should show.

Q: What are “beats,” and how can you use them to improve the rhythm of your dialogue?

DK: Beats are those little bits of action you sprinkle through dialogue. And you’re right, they do help you vary the rhythm of your dialogue. They’re especially useful for signaling when your dialogue heads in a different emotional direction. (“You sound just like your mother.” He watched her cringe. “Sorry, not enough sleep last night.”)

Beats also capture your characters’ personalities – beats should be as individual as dialogue – and keep your reader’s visual imagination engaged during an extended conversation – otherwise, your characters become talking heads. The trick is to come up with beats that do all of these things at once. That kind of multitasking gives your writing greater depth.

Q: What’s a good exercise for developing more powerful dialogue skills?

DK: There’s no substitute for listening. Develop a taste for the rich, real voices around you.

A few years ago, a local acquaintance here in Ashfield said in conversation, “Yeah, I was married for eight years and been with another one for six years and been with the one I’m with for ten years, and that’s half my life chewed up.” That’s voice.

Q: You provide a lot of editing exercises in your book. What’s the value of practice-editing someone else’s work?

DK: Now that’s a question I’ve never encountered before. While writing and editing are two different skills, you can learn a lot about writing by editing. It’s impossible to edit something without becoming intimately familiar with it, and studying in detail how another writer uses language and technique can broaden your horizons.

Unless, of course, you’re too busy trying to make them write like you.

Q: There’s an equation in your book: 1 + 1 = ½. Can you explain what it means?

DK: Briefly, it means don’t overdo it. When you’re starting out as a writer, it’s hard to judge what impact a given element – a descriptive detail, a beat, a character trait – will have on your readers. So you tend to hit your points really hard, showing the same characteristic in two or three different ways. The strain of the repetition undermines what you’re trying to do. 1 + 1 = ½.

Q: What can poets and logophiles do to ensure their creative treasures aren’t bogging down the text?

DK: I wrote an article for Writer’s Digest on this very topic. (It’s available on my website, www.davekingedits.com.) The brief answer is: when your language becomes more important than your story, you’re in trouble. Purple prose is almost always written by someone in love with his or her use of the language. Characters often speak out of character, or pay attention to details they shouldn’t (i.e. details that are interesting to the writer rather than the character), just to let the writer exercise his or her powers of description. These descriptions often leave behind the physical details of the scene in favor of simile and metaphor. Essentially, the writer takes center stage, elbowing the story aside. That’s never good.

Q: Is there an editing precept you wish writers would use more often?

DK: Sure, the one I mentioned above, ‘’Your mileage may vary.'’ Too often, I see clients take good, reasonable editorial advice (including advice from Self-Editing for Fiction Writers) and apply it mechanically, as if it were a paint-by-numbers instruction book – with paint-by-numbers prose as the result. I’ve had clients ask me the maximum number of words a sentence should have, or tell me they’re concerned because an agent told them romances should always be written in the first person.

All stories are individuals, and the best of them transcend genre and even create their own genres. True, there are storytelling techniques that often come in handy, and it makes sense to read books and take courses to master these techniques. There are also techniques that are expected of books within a genre – a surprise denouement in a mystery, for instance — and it sometimes makes sense to bear them in mind.

But if you’re applying any of these techniques mechanically, then you’re not really writing. Your story has to be a living being, growing and changing according to its own internal spirit. It’s that story that I try to help writers find.

Thank you, Dave King, for your time and for an enlightening interview!

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