Have you ever started reading a novel and after a few
chapters in you paused and asked yourself, “Why am I forcing myself to read
this?” Then, in the hopes of it getting better, you continue reading only to
stop a few chapters later and repeat the question?
I have.
We all have.
And that’s the
last unpleasantry any writer wants their readers to experience.
I love reading
fantasy above all other genres. In fact, I love it so much that I write it.
Years ago I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about with the Harry Potter
books I’d yet to read. I mean, everyone was reading them and talking about
them. So much so in fact that they were turned into billion dollar movies. So I
borrowed the first Harry Potter novel, sat and began reading. After a few
chapters in I paused and asked myself, “Really? This is what all the fuss is
about?”
Now, I’m not
trying to hate on what’s-her-butt’s Harry Potter novels, because obviously
millions, if not billions, of people love them and have enjoyed them. But what
I couldn’t get past, what began grating on my nerves after only a few chapters
in, were all of the unnecessary -ly adverb tags what’s-her-butt had written
into her otherwise entertaining story.
“Harry sighed
softly” or “Hermione ran fastly” or “Ron shouted loudly” and so on and so
forth.
I HATE -ly
adverb tags. I mean, how else can someone sigh but soft? How else can someone
run but fast? How else can someone shout but loud?
Harry sighed.
Hermione ran. Ron shouted.
Ahh, there,
that’s better.
And so I learned
never to use -ly adverb tags in my own writing . . . or at least to use them
“sparingly.”
Terry Goodkind
comes to mind next. If you don’t know who Terry is, he’s the famous (or infamous, depending on whom you ask; Google search “Terry Goodkind is an asshole” at your own risk/amusement) author of
the successful Sword of Truth fantasy series. His novels were so well received that one of my favorite film directors Sam Raimi turned Terry’s novels into a
television show (I’m still waiting for good ol’ Sam to do the same with The
Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, but alas . . .). I heard all this fluff n’
nutter about how great a writer Terry was, so I “ran fastly” to the library and
checked out a few of his books.
These held my
interest much more so than the Harry Potter books, but that’s just a personal
preference. Yet after a few hours of reading I paused with reader annoyance.
You see, Terry has the bad habit of repeating himself . . . and repeating himself . . . and repeating himself to the point that I wanted to tear the pages out and eat
them so I could crap them out just to pee on them then yell at the stinky
puddle!
I have anger
issues.
This is not to
say that I think Terry is a bad writer (though I've since graduated to superior storyweavers such as Steven Erikson's fantastic 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' series, Paul Kearney's wonderful 'The Monarchies of God' series, and <sigh> Patrick Rothfuss' poetic 'The Kingkiller Chronicle' . . . if ol' Pat ever finishes the third damn book considering he said all three were already written back in 2007 yet his trilogy is still incomplete as I write this in the tail-end of 2018). I’ve read every
novel in Terry's Sword of Truth series and then some, and for the most part I enjoyed them all despite Terry's obsession with Ayn Rand and his incessant need for characters to spit out lengthy pages of boring speech. But I
also learned a valuable lesson to apply to my own writing thanks to Mr. Yeard: your readers are not
idiots. You don’t have to beat them over the head with the Obvious Stick by
repeating something you know is important to your story’s plot just to ensure
the reader will remember it when it pays off later in your story.
And so I learned
The Rule of Three: write it once for atmosphere, describe it twice for spice,
and only repeat it three times throughout your entire story if it’s important.
Atmosphere is
pretty much anything background. If your protagonist is sitting at a table and
the waiter drops their order off then walks away never to be seen again then
there’s no point in spending the next few pages describing said nameless
waiter. Spice is your protagonist’s childhood scar on their cheek, or their
favorite shirt they just can’t leave the house without, or a recurring
“something” that adds depth to the story or characters but doesn’t otherwise
affect the plot. And anything important that affects the plot is, well,
obviously important enough that it needs be repeated for the sake of your
reader’s remembrance.
But don't beat
your reader over the head with it. Mentioning it three times is enough. Readers
aren’t bad puppies who keep peeing on the carpet when you’re not looking.
Personally, I
had (and sometimes still do, but thank god for editing) the bad habit of having
my characters standing up or sitting down.
But how else can
you stand but up? How else can you sit but down?
In my earlier writings I had my characters standing “up” or sitting “down” all
over the place! A small embarrassment, yes, though I've since fixed that personal particular writer's quirk.
He stood. She
sat. ‘Nuff said.
Ahh, there,
that’s better.
It’s hard to
find the annoying mistakes in your own writing, which is why it’s always a good
idea to have someone else point your mistakes out to you . . . and preferably not a
close friend or family member; they have the bad habit of telling you something
is good even when it’s not so as to not hurt your pwecious wittle feelwings.
Because it’s human nature to point out others’ mistakes much easier than it is
to perceive our own. So use this to your utmost advantage as a writer. Because
mistakes exist as opportunities for learning and improving one’s self.
The next time
you sit and begin reading a novel that you soon find grates on your nerves,
maybe, just maybe consider pushing through it. Because by the time you finish
you might just learn something new and valuable to apply to your own writing.
I know I have.