In Today’s Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* Chapter One: Using the Physical and Emotional Sense Verbs
* Of Interest
My Quote of the Day
“In the short story or novel, dialogue equals action. It forces the reader to lean into the story and to participate as an eavesdropper.”
Chapter One: Using the Physical and Emotional Sense Verbs
The Goal: Never use the physical and emotional sense verbs when writing fiction.
For now: Try never to use the physical and emotional sense verbs when writing fiction.
After you’ve read this chapter, if you put that “For now” thought into your creative subconscious before you begin writing—or even as you’re writing—you’ll use fewer and fewer sense verbs while you’re writing.
As you continue to write new stories, from time to time you will still use the sense verbs when describing a scene or the POV character.
Partly for that reason, it’s a good idea to cycle back over what you’ve written to recast those passages and eliminate the sense verbs. (See the final chapter of this book for pointers on cycling.)
Remember, the writer’s only job is to convey the story, not to comment on it.
That means try not to provide your opinion on what the character
- saw, could see;
- heard, could hear;
- smelled, could smell;
- tasted, could taste;
- touched, could touch;
- felt, could feel (physically or emotionally);
- sensed, could sense; or
- knew.
- Letting the narrator barge in with phrases like “had to admit” is an even more blatant intrusion.
The Source of the Problem
There are only two reasons fiction writers use physical or emotional sense verbs when referring to characters: insecurity or ego.
Even if a bad writing instructor taught you to use the sense verbs or that doing so is all right, he was appealing to either your insecurity or your ego. Either one can cause the writer to fear the reader won’t “get it.” Most of the time, and for most writers, either use is unconscious and unintentional.
I’ll write more on insecurity in the chapter on Overstating the Obvious (or Beating the Reader Over the Head).
For now, a lot of author intrusion is the unconscious result of ego, and that’s fine. We all have an ego. But my advice is to keep it out of your fiction.
Let the characters be who they are and tell their own story. Let them voice their own opinions and live their own life. Your only job is to write it all down.
Try to remember to Just Describe The Scene.
If you do that, the reader will experience the scene (see, hear, smell, etc.) right along with the character. This is a big part of what writing instructors mean when they say “Show, don’t tell.”
Here are a couple of scenarios to help explain:
Imagine for a moment that you paid good money for a ticket to a Broadway play.
Scenario 1—
Now imagine the play is underway, and one character in a scene approaches another character. The first character gestures and opens his mouth as the other arches his eyebrows in anticipation. They appear ready to engage in a conversation.
Then the characters freeze.
A short guy in a tuxedo enters from Stage Right, a spotlight reflecting harshly off his balding head. In one hand, he’s carrying a microphone. He stops at the leading edge of center stage, smiles, raises the mic, and proceeds to tell the audience what the characters were about to say to each other.
As the tuxedo-clad guy finishes his narrative, he lowers the mic and turns to exit.
The characters—including the two who were apparently about to speak to each other—go back to the action of the play without having said a word.
Scenario 2—
Now imagine it’s twenty minutes or so later and in the middle of the another scene.
Again the characters freeze in place, and the same little balding guy comes back to center stage with yet another interruption.
This time he explains to the the audience how a character feels or what the character sees (or can see) or hears (or can hear) etc. instead of simply staying in the wings and letting the audience figure that out for themselves.
The Upshot
Do you suppose either of those scenarios might be a little disconcerting for the audience? Or even annoying?
Of course it’s disconcerting. Of course it’s annoying, as another member of the audience attests, quietly, when he scowls and mutters, “If only the little bald guy would get the hell off the stage and let me enjoy the play!”
Those make-believe stage-play scenarios are exactly the same thing as author intrusion in a short story, novella, or novel. And they have exactly the same disastrous effect.
After all, the audience members attending the stage play, including you, want to transport themselves into the story unfolding on the stage.
They want to feel as if they are active participants in the story, if only vicariously. That’s why they spent their hard-earned cash for tickets.
- They want to hear the characters’ conversations for themselves, directly from the characters and without the filter of the guy in the tuxedo, as if they’re eavesdropping.
- They want to glean clues from the setting and from the characters’ words and actions in the scene. From those audible, visual, and emotional clues, they want to figure out for themselves how the characters feel emotionally and what they see and hear and smell and taste and touch and everything else that’s going on.
Likewise, readers (again, including you) want to feel as if they know the characters.
They want to feel included, as if the characters have invited them into the story. They want to participate vicariously by gleaning clues from the description of the setting, from events in the story, and from how the characters’ react, in both their dialogue and their actions, to those events.
What they do not want is for the writer to suddenly step in between them and the characters. They don’t want you to intrude and keep them at arm’s length from the story and the characters.
And isn’t that why you spend the time to write a short story or novella or novel in the first place? To temporarily transport readers from their own humdrum “real” lives into your characters’ exciting world?
I’ll continue this post tomorrow with the rest of Chapter 1. Talk with you again then.
Of Interest
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