Secrets to Writing Irresistible Fiction by Margie Lawson

I’m so excited to introduce Margie Lawson as our month-long January guest at Routines for Writers. Her bio is below, but let me just tell you she is a friend to writers! She is an energetic and encouraging teacher. If you take her advice, you will be amazed at how much better your writing will be.  Good news: she also loves a good contest. She’s running one for us today, and if you check out her website you’ll see she’s got an even bigger one going there! Let’s have fun, and learn together this month.

A writer strives to select every word to build momentum. The perfect words create page turners.

Every word counts. Writers can’t allow lazy words to add weight to their work. No slackers!

Audition your words.

Hold each word up and evaluate it. Be sure it’s a keeper.

Imagine a word line stretching from New York City to San Francisco. Picture each word of your book strung on that line. It’s your job to push a ladder cross country those 2909 miles, step by step, hooking every letter to the word line.

Each word that’s the perfect fit has a quality that’s magical. When you hook the last letter of the word, an invisible force keeps those letters from adding weight to the word line. If the word works, its weight is self-supporting.

The magic works both ways. If these words become superfluous based on subsequent words added to the line, they lose their power and add weight, creating sag.

Extraneous words, tautologies, unnecessary phrases, echoes, excessive description, fluffy dialogue, vague and wasted words—all become as heavy as tombstones. Tombstones weigh down your line and run your story into the dirt. Your word line may stretch from New York City to Newark above ground, then go subterranean.

Books with few wasted words allow the reader to zip along the word line on a smooth trip from New York City to San Francisco. That’s a compelling read.

We’ve all read books that start strong and fresh and draw us through the first few chapters or maybe the first third of the book, then BLAUGH. Something doesn’t work.

We put the book down and forget to pick it up for days. When we return to the story, we can’t remember the story.

If the reader can abandon those characters for days and not recall what’s happening, either the plot is plodding or the craft of writing is as burdensome and arduous as climbing Mount Everest.

Without oxygen.

In that can-put-it-down book—the snoozer—what writing craft changes would have made it an irresistible read?

1) Getting input from a strong Critique Partner.

2)  Writing tight – nixing unnecessary words and phrases

3)  Writing fresh – including fresh body language and dialogue cues and fresh visceral emotion.

4)  Analyzing scenes with the EDITS System.

5)  Using a wide range of rhetorical devices.

6)  Practicing Deep Editing – including my 5 Question Scene Check List

Let’s look at items one and two.

1.  Getting input from a Strong Critique Partner.

Writers frequently use the phrase, TIGHTEN, when critiquing other’s work. It’s so easy to see the flab in someone else’s work. Not so easy when it’s the words you may have struggled through hours of labor to deliver.

What does tighten mean? If a critique partner brackets half of one of your pages and scribbles TIGHTEN in the margin, there are multiple interpretations.

Is the passage too slow? Do you need to keep the length, but make it more active?

Is it too long?

Is there too much description? Too much dialogue? Too much dreck?

Did you meander? Follow a tangent? Does the tangent need to be cut, or just parts of it?

Does the passage need to be cut by 10%?  25%?  50%?  95%?

Is tightening enough? If tightened, would the passage soar?

Are there any lines that absolutely don’t work and others that are winners?

How invested is the critiquer in having you tighten this section?

When critiquing, it’s helpful to provide as much input as possible. Take a few extra seconds and share WHY something works when you compliment their work.

– Great simile!

– Fresh writing.

– Love how you added power with anaphora!

On the flip side, you can also add information when you share YOUR TAKE on why something doesn’t work. You may share notes like this:

–Dragging. Too many internalizations?. Tighten by 30%?  Break it up by inserting some of your dialogue here?  Or add a Dialogue Cue?

– Light on setting . . .

–Vary sentence structure?

–Backload?

–Choppy.  For me – it’s too many short sentences in a row.

–Great visceral, but I think you need more. Maybe add a hit of Internalization (YELLOW) to support the visceral (PINK) – then add another line of visceral (PINK)  after the internalization (YELLOW).

Those comments are nudges. Gentle suggestions.

One of the bonuses of DEEP EDITING someone else’s work is that you learn more.

By being a strong EDITING PARTNER –you’ll be a better writer.

2.  Writing Tight

Echo words and phrases become cognitive trip-wires. The reader has a blip in their reading, not a fall-on-your-face speed-bump, but a stumble. I think of it as a synapse pause.

It pays to review for echo words. Each writer looks for their favorite words. They could be all forms of words like grab, grip, glance, look, see, lean, tug, pull, cross, tap, turn . . .

The FIND function in your WORD program may become your best friend. I recommend keeping a list of your FREQUENTLY USED WORDS and do a FIND on them after every chapter, from page 1 through your current page. Add to your list.

Using the FIND function is also a great way to track which facial expressions and dialogue cues you use frequently—which gives you a chance to expand your repertoire and provide more fresh writing. If you do a FIND for EYES and get lots of hits, and do a FIND on MOUTH and LIPS and get none or few—that’s good information. You know what you need to do. Nix some eyes. Add more mouth and lip responses. And write them all fresh.

Think of the ways you typically share physical emotion and do a FIND on the key words. You’ll know what you have, where, and decide which you need to rewrite.

I’ll be back next Tuesday to share more secrets of writing irresistible fiction. Now it’s your turn.

PLEASE CHIME IN!

POST A COMMENT – AND YOU MAY WIN A LECTURE PACKET!

I will draw a name for a Lecture Packet, a $22 value, at 8PM Mountain Time.  Winners may choose a Lecture Packet from one of my six on-line courses.  Lecture Packets are available for all my courses through Paypal from my website, www.MargieLawson.com.

1.  Empowering Characters’ Emotions

2.  Deep Editing:  The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More

3.  Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist

4.  Powering Up Body Language in Real Life: Projecting a Professional Persona When Pitching and Presenting

5.  Digging Deep into the EDITS System

6.  Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors

Margie Lawson —psychotherapist, writer, and international presenter—developed innovative editing systems and deep editing techniques for writers.

Her Deep Editing tools are used by all writers, from newbies to NYT Bestsellers.  She teaches writers how to edit for psychological power, how to hook the reader viscerally, how to create a page-turner.

Over four thousand writers have learned Margie’s psychologically-based deep editing material.  In the last five years, she presented fifty-two full day Master Classes for writers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Lectures from each of Margie’s on-line courses are offered as Lecture Packets through PayPal from her web site.  For more information on courses, lecture packets, master classes, and 3-day Immersion Master Class sessions, visit:  www.MargieLawson.com .

Thank you for joining us today!

All smiles…………Margie

www.MargieLawson.com