One of the good things about editing, especially when
it’s a story you wrote several years before, is you can read it with a critical
eye. There are parts that blow me away because they’re good (wow, I wrote
that!) and then there are other parts that have me cringing over word choices
or the over abundance of adverbs, backstory, or passive verbs.
I've done more reading than writing the past couple of
years and while I can read a book critically, I usually don’t. I’m a beta
reader. I read those stories and proposals with a different eye. When I pick up
a book to read it’s for story’s entertainment value. Kind of like movies—some
are good, some are just okay and they entertain, some movies are
fabulous in their storyline and execution. Do I see flaws, sure, but unless
they’re really bad and the story has huge holes in it (at which point I don’t
read any further ‘cause you've lost my interest), I tend to gloss over all the
little nits and concentrate on the adventure, solving the crime, falling in
love, or kicking ass. But, when a story
is done very well, I do take note of how an author handles certain components
in the story. I’ll mark it and then go back late and analyze the why and
how.
Recently, I've read several stories with a good plot but
what made the story outstanding to me was how the characters (even the
villains) just sparkled. They were so real and the dialog was excellent as were
the reactions and interactions between those characters. Their dialog and reactions
add excitement and fun to the story without a lot of narrative. It takes skill
to do that. A few authors who have a
knack of writing good characters like that are Carolyn Brown, Julie Ann Walker,
Lori Foster, Olivia Cunning, Karen Foley, and Susan Sey, to name but a few. Carolyn writes
some fabulous characters that use regional phrases and colloquialisms
As I read over my stories one of the things I’m paying
attention to is how I've written my characters and their dialog. I want them to
sparkle, too. I want the layers touching on the senses that put the reader on
the spot and in the action. Right there on the center-line They hear the
grunts, smell the sweat, feel the
excitement, and hear the whistle of the ball
in their ears and the smack it makes when it’s caught. I don’t want them to
just be spectators in the nosebleed section.
I've got some work to do and that’s a fact. But, I’m not
groaning over it all. Instead there is a sizzle of excitement as I look at
better ways to put my reader on the spot.
