Category: Editing Rant

Editing Rant: Laugh Here

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of farconville at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Humor is tough. Ask any actor – drama may be a challenge, but timing a laugh is a unique talent which has to be honed into a skill. This is why you might see comedic actors do drama, but rarely will drama actors do comedy. Same with writers. The best comedies will make you cry, but dramas with laughs snuck in are fewer. And comedic genres mixes (fantasy, sci-fi, etc) are as rare as unicorns.

Humor comes in many forms: slapstick/physical, snide remarks, comedic characters, comedic situations (sit-coms), straight-up weird (surreal), puns/wordplay, topical/current events, observations/every-day-life, and fart jokes. Some authors writing comedy will attempt every single type joke one sentence after another, never stopping – like the movie Airplane. Exhausting reads, and often side-splitting, except when they are not.

The problem is some writers aren’t funny, and they are trying so hard.

A recent book I read had constant joking between characters, snide and straight-up humor versions. Normally I like this type of thing, but these read like a sitcom with canned laughter. Anytime someone said something snide or “funny”, the people they were talking to laughed and smiled at the jokes. Every.SINGLE.time. It’s like the author did not trust the reader to find things funny and lit up a big sign “laugh here” to make sure the audience knew when a joke was said.

This is not what funny is.

Comedians do not laugh at their own jokes. They tell a joke and wait for the audience to laugh. If it doesn’t work, they strike the joke from their repertoire.

Don’t tell readers when to laugh. Have them discover the funny on their own.

Editing Rant: Head Hopping

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Somkiat Fakmee at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Head hopping. A virtual Easter Bunny jumping from point-of-view (POV) character to another; a camera so mobile, as to make one nauseous from the concussive force of the head-banging switches. Reading the work of a writer operating an “over the shoulder” drone flying so fast we get glimpses of the decision-making and emotional state of each character, not from one scene to another, but one sentence to another … and no telepathy involved.

Please make it stop!

What is the problem with headhopping? Well, while multiple close third person allows for one POV character per chapter or scene to have their thoughts revealed, headhopping switches the emotions and thoughts of one character for another paragraph by paragraph (or one sentence following another) creating a whip-lash effect in a reader who is trying to emotionally connect with a character.

Connecting with a character, empathizing with them, is an essential component of recreational reading. Prominent headhopping prevents that. In addition, headhopping increases confusion about the story’s focus.

Readers don’t need to know everyone’s reactions to a character’s declaration. Observing how people react and interpreting it can double up the character development. Think about it. A headhop would only provide surface information about the two characters – one acting and one reacting. But staying with the primary action character means we not only see the thoughts of the action, but we observe how the character interprets the reaction, giving us insights on how the singular POV character views the world and the people in it. This is a great way to show an unreliable narrator, as we see the reaction through the character’s eyes, and “hear” their interpretation of the reaction.

Jennifer Ellis has a marvelous blog on the subject, showing different conventions for shifting POV including one of the most common – focusing on a common foot solider, then zooming out for a bird’s eye view of the battle, and then dropping the drone of the storyteller behind the general watching on the hill.

You can find out more details about headhopping, its pros and cons, AND HOW TO AVOID IT (please, please avoid it) at her blog here: (NOTE 2/28/2022 – Looks like this website has been taken down.). There is lots more on the topic available, so google-hop around the head of the interwebs and learn all about it.

Editing Rant: Timeline

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Love this story. Wonderful … wait, what just happened? During the morning the person was caught in rush hour, but evening she is surprised when people are working on a Sunday? Oh, and a secondary character just flew home after a long weekend. Early morning has rush hour just about one hour past dawn a nice solid 8:30, but evening rush hour is long past though it is just sunset, and since it is late autumn in the story that makes it about 5:30 pm? Why no rush hour at 5:30 pm?

TIMELINE folks are your friend, and they are not just for thrillers anymore.

Anytime you have a countdown … a letter arrives saying a visitor arrives in four days, a child is kidnapped and given 48 hours to find, or a person comes back after four weeks away … make sure these work. Your readers don’t need to know the countdown to the hour (or minute depending on how tight it is), but you should. And if daylight versus nighttime hours apply keep track of the time of year and how many daylight hours actually exist. Is it the 14-hours of summer or the 9-hours of winter, or equinox of 12 hours for the spring and fall? Are tides 24-hour apart or 12?

Timeline, seasonal, daylight hours. Everyone understands the passage of time and it is one of the fastest things to throw readers out of the story when the fourth dimension is ill-defined.

I can go on and on about this. It is a common issue. Make a timeline, because the rewrite tends to get extensive. I usually just put in comments with “TIMELINE” notes over to the side during the editing phase to make certain everything lines up.

Other Cool Blog: Mary Sue/Gary Stu

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of tawatchai at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

All I want for Christmas is no more Mary Sue manuscripts. The outpouring has been strong.

A character loved by her family, has to leave them through no fault of her own, immediately loved by the new people. Perfect in every way, but tragically sick (hence the leaving). Named after the author writing the original fiction story. A slush read rejected.

A character physics major in college, had Asperger as a child but now can go to loud parties and drinks, superpower of knowing exactly how much time has passed. Bad with words, yet gets his girl the freshman year. Freshman, yet intern to an internationally famous physicists. Skinny, yet can climb easily and run everywhere. Superpower of everything has gone right about him when he needs it to. Superpower of time travel – note only the last superpower is presented as superpower. This Gary Stu has hooked up with her perfect girl Mary Sue, tragically sick, amazing beautiful, time travel lock to help him meet his destiny. A book initially intending for pleasure reading and the inspiration for this post.

What is a Mary Sue? The term originally came from fanfic where a writer would insert an idealized version of herself into the story. We’ve all done it in daydreams, entering Twilight, Star Wars, Supernatural, and the characters fall in love with the perfect us. The problem occurs when writing out these personal fantasies and sharing them with others without adding rough edges to the idealization. Gary Stu is the male version.

The term has spread out from fandom to other formats. You know a Mary Sue/Gary Stu when you see them. Perfect people, beautiful, athletic, everyone loves them and the hottest person of appropriate gender falls in love with them at sight. They are perfectly smart, easily solving issues, never say a bad word about anyone. They are avatars of everything good wrapped up in a sentient being.

You’ve met them and hated them in visual mediums, Wesley Crusher (Star Trek: Next Generation) and Bella Swan (Twilight) being the standout examples. You’ve met them and loved them, James Bond and Nancy Drew pops into the head. If you are a writer, some of your earliest works have them. If you ever roleplayed in a Monty Hall campaign, you’ve rolled dice for some.

Some writers try to sneak by a Mary Sue/Gary Stu as a “poor puppy” with a tragic past being their flaw. Other try to pass them as an “everyman” (then reveal a thousand-year old line of wizards, or uber-fighting skill, or amazing intelligence) – one example which stuck with me is the “ordinary accountant” over six foot tall, able to throw around a werewolf, sniper level ability to guns, speaks multiple languages, and two black belts (Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia – get the preview through amazon for a taste; not going to do a link for this one, it’s on you).

It’s easy to make a Mary Sue as a writer. You just love your main character a little too much and stop torturing them and instead give them unicorns and rainbows. This downfall gets easier to avoid the longer you write; sitting in a chair forcing yourself to write every.single.day inspires you to pass on the torture. I highly recommend reading the TV tropes article listed below for learning about how Mary Sue characters evolve in writing: the poorly written character, the cliched character, the author avatar, the idealized character, the power fantasy, and the infallible character.

The biggest obstacle to prevention of Mary Sues/Gary Stus is writing a marketable manuscript often requires a likable protagonist facing amazing odds and overcoming them. Mary Sue originated from people putting themselves in a narrative, yet that is exactly what we want our readers to do: identify with the main character on some level and insert themselves into the narrative. We need the MC to be likable, even lovable, to have powers. In short, every likable protagonist is related to Mary Sue on some level.

The talisman against Mary Sues is “show don’t tell”. Don’t tell me she is lovable, show me why she is lovable. If it makes you sick showing every kitten in a tree rescue, likely you got a Mary Sue. Don’t have the gal fall immediately for the Gary Stu, show why she is attracted and moves into the male’s orbit. Why do the powers exist, given or earned? Show me.

The amulet against Gary Stu is “too much of a good thing”. List all the defining characteristics of the protagonist. If somewhere in the list you start going, “I don’t believe this character” likely your readers won’t either. Cut some of them back. Share them with the supporting characters. Look at the challenge facing the character in the plot and REMOVE the easy solution from his abilities.

Mary Sue and Gary Stu have their place. We love to love our characters, but don’t make the main characters avatars of perfection. Please. Do you think I can get my Christmas wish? I’m off to check under the slush pile.

 

Bibliography

“Is your character a Mary Sue?” – GoToQuiz, https://www.gotoquiz.com/is_your_character_a_mary_sue_2 (last viewed 12/6/2017)

“Mary Sue” – TV Tropes, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue (last viewed 12/6/2017)

“Mary Sue 101: How to Spot Her and How to STAY AWAY” – fanpop, https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/writing/articles/4391/title/mary-sue-101-how-spot-how-stay-away (last viewed 12/6/2017)

Reddit discussion “Famous Mary Sue Examples” – https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/3rgk3b/famous_mary_sue_examples/#bottom-comments (last viewed 12/6/2017)

“Who are the most notable ‘Mary Sue’ characters in books and literature” by Monika Kothari – Quora – https://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-most-notable-Mary-Sue-characters-in-books-and-literature (last viewed 12/6/2017)