Plot Monkeys

I’m so excited to welcome fabulous author, Isabel Sharpe, to the jungle today! Isabel is one of the famous Temptresses…those are the authors who wrote for the much-missed Harlequin line, Temptation. She’s now writing for Blaze, as well as for Avon/Harper Collins, where she writes absolutely hilarious and poignant women’s fiction. I know I talked about her book, WOMEN ON THE EDGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKTHROUGH on the blog because frankly, it blew me away.

Today, Isabel is going to talk about pet peeves she’s developed after judging unpublished contests. We’re going to be talking about contests a bit in future months, so this post is PERFECT TIMING. Thanks for posting, Isabel!!! She has a Blaze out this month…and man, is the cover H-O-T.
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Hello, hello. Isabel Sharpe here as your guest. I just finished judging contest entries for an unpubbed contest, and was inspired to write a random list of personal pet peeves.

Unnecessary dialogue tags.

I know many published authors love dialogue tags, so I’m not going to tell you it’s wrong to use them, but they drive me insane.

“Does anybody know what’s on TV tonight?” Ron asked, caressing his remote in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. “I can’t find the TV Guide.”

It’s perfectly clear Ron is asking simply from the dialog, you don’t need to tell us. Much neater and more rhythmically balanced to my ear is the following:

“Does anybody know what’s on TV tonight?” Ron caressed his remote in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. “I can’t find the TV Guide.”

Simple dialog tags, (“I know,” Emma said.) are often either unnecessary, if it’s perfectly obvious Emma is due to speak next, or, if it’s not obvious, then a simple “said” can be plain lazy if action would illustrate more about the scene or her mood. (“I know.” Emma tried not to gag at the mere thought.) If you have several people speaking or need the dialog to rush past, then a “he said” or “she said” can serve you well, but most of the time, blech, they’re filler.

Sometimes authors, when they want to show a character is pausing between bits of dialog, and they use a tag. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Lazy! Give him something to do or think, so the reader can really picture the pause and understand it. “I know.” He started to reach for her, then let his hand drop. “I’m sorry.”

Alternating dialogue and action
I see this a lot in contest entries:

“What time is it?” Marie looked ruefully at her broken watch. “I can’t tell on this thing.” She looked over her shoulder. “Oh look, here comes Fred with the donkey.” Her nose wrinkled. “I hope he gave it a bath.”

Try not to interrupt dialogue more than once.

“What time is it? I can’t tell on this thing.” Marie looked ruefully at her broken watch, then glanced over her shoulder and wrinkled her nose. “Oh look, here comes Fred with the donkey. I hope he gave it a bath.”

Use of clichés

Whenever a phrase pops quickly into your head, check your subconscious to see if it’s because you’ve read it a thousand times already. (His “steely eyes” and “rugged good looks,” her “silken hair” and “creamy skin.”) Don’t assume that because you read it in published books, it’s The Right Way. Try more interesting words to get your point across, but please stop short of being ridiculous. If you find yourself using phrases like, “her skin crunched with citrussy need” then you have gone too far. Take special care with love scenes, where the language can get so ooky that people don’t even want to imagine what you’re describing.

Sometimes you do want an image or thought to slip by the reader easily, without drawing attention to your literary brilliance. In those cases, a cliché can work. Just don’t fill a page with them or people will feel as if they’ve read your book already.

Prologues that waste space

I often read prologues thinking that the material could have been told or shown later without lessening the emotion or plot impact. Ask yourself what your prologue accomplishes. If it just shows that a long time ago your hero and heroine loved each other, you can weave that in later. What’s more, that prologue is not likely to hook the reader the way the real start to your story would.

Not grounding the reader

I often read entries where I have the feeling the author knew her characters and scene and situation very well, but forgot that we don’t. If you can’t get a critique partner, then brainwash yourself and read the scene slowly and carefully, imagining that you have never encountered it before. Don’t forget to tell us where we are, when, what the POV character wants, and as much in-character detail as you can fit without being boring or slowing your pace.

Describing a movie.

This is when the author has done a great job describing what is going on, but she forgets that writing a book is not like explaining what’s going on in a movie to someone who can’t see. We need the internal life of the POV character and his/her interpretations of what’s going on, not those of an impartial observer. There might be a cuckoo clock on the wall, but you can tell us plenty about your character by showing us the clock the way she sees it. Is it ostentatious? Tacky? Juvenile? Sentimentally evocative? Make sure you are completely immersed in your characters’ heads, never just your own.

Well. I feel so much better now. Happy writing!