By:
Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy
We’ve
been focusing on the what and the why for a while now, so it’s time to
give a little attention to the where .
Now that we have the setting,
Today, let’s make sure our descriptions and stage directions are serving the story and not getting in its way.
1.
Check the Descriptions
Is there too much description?
Not every item in a scene needs to
be described, only what’s important to understand the scene, the setting, the
characters, the problem, or to set the mood. In you’re unsure, try highlighting
or changing the color of all the descriptive text in a scene to more quickly
spot heavy areas that might need trimming. Cut any unnecessary details.
Revision tip: Read your scenes out loud (or run them through a text-to-speech program) and listen for trouble spots. It’s sometimes easier to hear where there are problems since we have to wait for the words to go by.
Is there too little description? Look for any “white room” issues where there’s little to no description at all. Passages with a lot of short lines or white space on the page are often places that could be light on description. Add description where needed.
Revision tip: Try zooming out so you see multiple pages at once on your screen. When the text is all gray bars, it’s easier to see where the sparse sections are (and the heavy ones, as this also works for too much description).
.
. .
Read the full
article HERE!
~*~
If
you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they
are again:
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