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About Dave King

Dave King is the co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, a best-seller among writing books. An independent editor since 1987, he is also a former contributing editor at Writer's Digest. Many of his magazine pieces on the art of writing have been anthologized in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing and in The Writer's Digest Writing Clinic. You can check out several of his articles and get other writing tips on his website.

Recent Posts by this author:

  • Catching the Train of Thought
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Yonder lies the castle of my father.
  • Wait, What?
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Balancing Character and Situation in your Hook
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Focus on what’s important.
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Context is All
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Hooking your readers with Character
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Building a World in a Hurry
  • The Editor’s Clinic: Drawing Your Readers in with an Intimate POV
  • Playing on Trust
  • Editor’s Clinic: A Look at your Hook
  • All the King’s Editors — Dave King

    • Catching the Train of Thought

    By 8 Comments

    The single piece of advice I repeat most often is to get into your characters’ heads — to write with a more intimate point of view. Let’s take a closer look at just what that means.

    Most writers go wrong by losing track of how everything on the page needs to flow out of a single character’s head. As the scene progresses, the flow of information and emotion is tied to that one person’s experience. When you trying to squeeze in information that the character wouldn’t think about, or when you use a language and style that don’t fit the character’s personality or mood, then you’re going to confuse your readers about who your character is.

    The problem in this morning’s passage is more subtle. The narrator, Raney, jumps from one emotional state, one idea, to another without a clear train of thought to relate them to one another. This makes it hard for readers to get to know the mind behind the disconnected thoughts. Granted, there are sometimes people who think this way, but usually you need to signal that kind of extreme state of mind to your readers. And even with someone who is not thinking clearly, the shifts from one mood to another are often triggered by the events they’re experiencing. In this case, it sometimes seems as if Raney’s a different person from paragraph to paragraph.

    For instance, if the author wanted to keep Raney’s longing to be taken away with the shipping containers, we should have seen some hints earlier that she was unhappy with her life. And after the paragraph about the containers, we would need to see her snap back to the present, the way she does after ruminating about her attraction to the groom and Norman’s attraction to the bride. The thoughts need to flow from one to another with clear transitions.

    An intimate point of view is a powerful character-building tool because it presents readers with a distinctly individual train of thought and flow of emotions. The events on the page bring the character to life because readers can sense what the character feels in response to them. When that shared emotional flow isn’t there, the events simply become a string of random thoughts and observations. And random thoughts do not a character make. [Read more…]

    The Editor’s Clinic: Yonder lies the castle of my father.

    By 1 Comment

    Yes, I know, Tony Curtis never actually said the line.  But does sum up one of the problems this morning’s editing is trying to address – language that is meant to create a mood of fantasy and wonder and instead simply comes across as formal and forced. First, a caveat.  This passage is taken from […]

    Wait, What?

    By 16 Comments

    Last May, the opening scene I edited raised a lot of questions – about the characters, their relationships, their backstory – without answering them right away. Of course, no opening scene can tell you everything at once, but this one put questions out there and then moved on, leaving readers hanging.  This led one commentator […]

    The Editor’s Clinic: Balancing Character and Situation in your Hook

    By 6 Comments

    Once again this morning, we’re looking at how best to draw your readers into the story.  Broadly speaking, there are two ways to do it.  You can give your readers a gripping situation with dramatic possibilities.  Or you can give your readers a character they want to get to know better.  And as usual in […]

    The Editor’s Clinic: Hooking your readers with Character

    By 16 Comments

    For the last couple of clinics, we’ve been looking at opening scenes that successfully introduced intriguing characters in a dramatic situation.  This morning, we’re looking at a less successful example.  I’ve included my comments at the bottom, so read the edited piece over and see what you think. Incidentally, if you would like to submit […]

    The Editor’s Clinic: Building a World in a Hurry

    By 9 Comments

    This morning we’re looking at another effective opening.  Like last month’s example, the first scene isn’t simply dramatic but introduces a likable character (named November) finding a moment of peace in an otherwise miserable life. But even more, it introduces readers quite effectively to an alternate metaphysics.  Note how the author ramps up the strangeness […]

    The Editor’s Clinic: Drawing Your Readers in with an Intimate POV

    By 8 Comments

    This morning’s Editor’s Clinic, the opening pages of a novel, follows the protagonist, Sylvie, as she sinks into a panic attack triggered by seeing her third-grade daughter picked up by her soccer coach.  It’s a sharp opening, tense in its own right and implying a dramatic backstory — why should seeing Coach’s innocent play trigger […]

    Playing on Trust

    By 31 Comments

    The Lutheran church where I’m organist uses an electronic instrument in a choir loft above the sanctuary.  The organ’s three huge speaker banks are hung off the loft rail so they project out over the congregation.  Which is fine, except that when the congregation is going all out (Lutherans tend to be full-throated singers), I […]

    All the King’s Editors — Dave King

    By 17 Comments

       Welcome back to All the King’s Editors, our regular feature — more or less twice a month — in which one of Writer Unboxed’s stable of editors line-edits a few pages that one of you has submitted.  This gives you a chance to see editing advice applied in its natural habitat. If you’d like […]

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