Writing a Page-Turner, Part II
Yesterday's blog discussed eliminating exposition (AKA minutia) from your writing to help quicken the pace of the story. Today we're going to talk about the distractions -- those words and extra, unnecessary thoughts that bog down the story-telling process. The reason I am focused on these details is because I am doing the final revision on my novel Body in the Trunk so I am paying extra attention to these things myself. What do some people consider distractions? Let's put a simple one in context with dialog. You can have too many "he said's, she' said's" and all those extra said's or ask's or whatnot can distract the reader from the actual flow. So here is the tip: if you've set up a scene clearly with two speakers you need only occasionally identify the speaker to keep it clear . You do not need to identify the speaker every sentence. In the scene set up, identify your speakers and then sparsely add the identifiers. Also, another tip: ...