Lazy Rivers
By Kevin Spencer
Okay, I can hear your questions. What do the Doobie Brothers have to do with a writing blog?
Well, it's not the Doobie's per se,
although I do love their music, but it's the imagery invoked by the song. Floating
on a raft on a large lazy river, the river banks gliding past quietly, the
water still, but moving, an almost imperceptible current moving you along.
What is it that makes a book you
can't put down? At the very heart of any manuscript, what is it that makes a
particular story one of those where the pages begin to turn themselves and the
chapters mysteriously fly by? It is that lazy, flowing river the wonderful
Doobie Brothers describe.
"Huh?"
(I know that's what you're thinking,
so I went ahead and stuck the word in there for you. You're welcome.)
When I work with writers, I tell them
to imagine their readers' eyes as a raft on that languorous river, drifting
along from word to word to word. That's what keeps a reader drawn into a story.
You want to keep those eyes moving, sliding along word to word, sentence to
sentence, chapter to chapter. You want your manuscript to flow like a river,
just pulling the reader along.
What you DO NOT want are rocks in
your river. You don't want boulders with their plumes of white water that will
spin your raft out of control. You don't want submerged logs just under the
surface that will catch and flip your raft. And you definitely don't want to
run up on a dam stretching across the river from bank to bank.
One example of rocks in our manuscript river is the exclamation mark! Even worse are multiple exclamation marks!!!!! What happens when you read an exclamation mark? Your eyes stop. The flow stops. You hit a rock. It is far better to DESCRIBE whatever you are exclaiming about than to lazily use an exclamation mark.
Robert Ludlum, the creator of
super-spy Jason Bourne, was in love with the exclamation mark. It used to drive
me insane trying to get drawn into his novels because he would throw
exclamation marks at his manuscript like he was salting popcorn.
Other rocks might be unnecessarily
complicated words or sentence structure. It might be an acronym or
abbreviation. It might be stilted or out-of-place dialogue. It could be
anything, really, that stops the reader.
You aren't going to eliminate ALL the
obstacles in our metaphorical river. Even I allow a writer two (but just two)
exclamation marks in a work-in-process. However, the more rocks you can
eliminate, the more you can keep your readers’ eyes gliding effortlessly from word
to word, like a lazy flowing river.
"Old black water, keep on
rollin' …"
(Photos courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net and Baitong333 and Master isolated images.)
TWEETABLE
Kevin
Spencer is a freelance writer and professional editor and is privileged to be a
staff writer for Christian Devotions. He lives in Middle Tennessee with
his beautiful wife Charlotte and his wonderful fourteen-year-old grandson
Caleb. A former prodigal son, Kevin has been blessed beyond measure and lives a
life far, far better than he deserves.
Good advice, Kevin.
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