Perhaps a bit dramatic but, hey, it's an extremely difficult feat when I can beat out my procrastination with a big sucker punch. Last night, if you follow me on Tumblr you'd know, I finished chapter four of my story in progress. And if you know me well enough, you'd also know that I can get extremely distracted easily, and get too many writer's blocks in a day. I'm surprised it hasn't caused some sort of aneurysm in my brain. 

The last blog I had also featured a writing update on the story left at chapter 2. Since that time, I posted that and the time of posting this, I managed to complete 2 chapters. I didn't get a chance to make a proper post regarding that chapter, so I thought I'd just clump it in this update while I'm at it since a lot of the problems I faced while writing chapter 3 seemed to spring up again while writing chapter 4. 

Chapter 3 had a distinct difficulty of getting a child-like narration right in the body of a young adult. She had to be mature in aspects of survival, but still innocent and naive in her identity. That was definitely a struggle trying to balance that with actually writing it for the readers. Chapter 4 had the distinct problem of dialogue, realistic and real to my characters. There's a difference I believe in realistic speech and language unique to the characters, don't know them well enough and they start to sound similar and confusing! I guess I have only myself to blame for loosely portraying these characters on other created characters that I have come to admire. But, I'm working on that, and I realize that if I want to push this work along, characters need to talk! So, you can be sure to see me writing down character background and the like. 

A common trouble, however, in both chapters was the language. I found that all of my sentences and structures were all passive. I've taken so many English courses that pounded into me the "show, don't tell!" motto and while I can achieve that in an academic setting, my brain hums along and forgets all of that when I actually write creatively. A tip I came across while blogging that definitely helped me push through in chapter 4 was this:

Tip #1: Delete the phrase “s/he saw.

Obviously not every use of the word saw (and its nieces and nephews: observed, noticed, etc.) will be slashed. But go through your manuscript looking for lines like these: 

She saw the lights come on in the kitchen. 

And change to: 

The lights came on in the kitchen. 

Just state the action. The “saw” phrases distance the reader. This often applies to other expressions as well, where you are describing the character interacting with the action rather than bringing the reader into it. She heard, she saw, sometimes even she wondered.   

(written by Michelle Massaro and continued tips over at RT Book Reviews)

This definitely helped me a lot. I caught myself using "s/he saw, s/he felt, s/he thought" and it definitely placed a strain on reading. It didn't flow as naturally and it limited me to the vividness and imagery of the narration. 

Hopefully, the success of chapter 5 will come more quickly than chapters 3 and 4! 

I plan on doing "Friday Journals" as a sort of tips and tricks for other writers struggling with their work. If there's anything you'd like for me to address, shoot a question in the comment or send me a message (preferably over on Tumblr). 




How do you fight the passive language and write more actively?