Category Archives: gawking character

Editors Speak: Things that Make Our Eyes Twitch

by
The IFW Editors

A couple of weeks ago, our editors contributed to a conversation about pet peeves, which led to last week’s blog on commonly confused words. Our editors are concerned about things that happen in writing that confuse the reader or pull her/him out of the story. Following are some of the things our editors advised writers to avoid.

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What drives me crazy is head-hopping. I’ve even seen it in published books—such as one from a best-selling author. In the middle of a dramatic scene, the main character is thinking of leaving her family and moving to the city to go to school. It was well written—until the author popped into the maid’s POV to describe what the character looked like. At that point I tossed the book across the room.

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Personification. Or, maybe I should say unintentional personification, because sometimes writers can intentionally use personification for comedic relief or for effect. But when you’re just reading along and see something like, “his knee didn’t notice the tree limb” or “the clock smiled down from the mantle,” you just scratch your head.

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I hate excessive “shopping lists.” He opened the suitcase and found underwear bleached sparkling white, undershirts that matched the underwear, socks in every dark color, brand-name deodorant, a razor and a replacement blade, a yellow toothbrush, mint whitening toothpaste, and the strongest mouthwash on the market. After the first two items, the reader’s eyes glaze over—if they haven’t quit reading. Decide what’s most important and never list more than three items. And, if none of them are important, skip the details!

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Some writers fail to mention a character’s name on the first page, using “he” or “she” over and over. Perhaps they think this adds mystery or intrigue, but all it really does is prevent the reader from feeling any sort of empathy for the character.

The converse is just as distressing, such as when ten or twelve new characters are introduced by name on the first page. How on earth can we make sense of that many people, especially when we don’t know who is the main character?

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One of my pet peeves: Long, rambling sentences that go on and on and start with one subject but end up with an entirely different subject, like a vacation that gets sidetracked because the map has a crease in it, which happened frequently before the days of cell phones and GPS devices, which have changed the world as we know it–and, perhaps, changed the subject of our sentence as well.

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One concerning thing that drives me crazy is the tendency of some writers to find up to a zillion ways to overuse prepositions in a sentence throughout a story until the sanity of the reader begins to melt into an abyss of blackness. YIKES! Cut the insanity! Cut the prepositions!

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Too many adjectives. And adverbs. And ellipses. And exclamation marks. And sentences that begin with conjunctions.

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This one recently became a pet peeve of mine: using unnecessarily large (read: pretentious) adjectives. I was reading a style guide that preached “simple and direct,” but every other word was annoyingly complex or obscure. Another pet peeve is using two or three adjectives in a series—to describe a single item—but the adjectives are all synonyms.

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It annoys me when a character “gawks”: John noticed the wind rustling the leaves of the oak tree instead of Wind rustled the leaves of the oak tree. A “gawking character” exists whenever a writer places a character between a reader and the action. Another example: Angelica heard the truck round the bend and saw it come down the street. Instead, write: Tires squealed, then a pickup sped around the bend and down the street.

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My pet annoyance is errors in paragraphing, such as when a paragraph includes dialogue (without tags) from one character and action from another. Example:

“Hey, Pops! Want to see me do a cartwheel?” He sucked on his pipe. 

 “Can you also do a split?” She sneezed six times, then nodded.

This should be written:

“Hey, Pops! Want to see me do a cartwheel?” 

 He sucked on his pipe. “Can you also do a split?” 

 She sneezed six times, then nodded.

Then we know who is speaking.

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My peeve: Using “creative” dialogue tags that don’t make sense:
“It was free,” I scowled. “What more do you want?”

“Extra jelly,” she laughed.

You can’t smile, scowl or even laugh words! You can say them, scream them, and state them, amongst others. You can also say something, then smile, scowl, or laugh. But these are actions and require a sentence of their own. They are not dialogue tags!

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We have tip sheets to address most of these situations, so if there are any you want to study in more depth, let us know and we’ll be happy to send you a tutorial.

Do you have the same pet peeves as us? Are there any annoying writing habits that aren’t on our list that you think should be? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Gawking Characters

by
Jessica Murphy

A “gawking character” is a narrator who tells the reader what happens in a scene instead of letting the reader experience it directly. This is called narrator intrusion, and it robs the reader of the full experience, thus distancing him from the story. A gawking character looks like this:

Gawking: Adam saw the orange glow and the rolling black smoke in the sky from where he stood on the corner of the block. As he jogged down the sidewalk toward it, he felt a cool breeze and smelled burning wood. He ducked under the branch of a tree and saw the burning house. From where he stood, he felt the intense heat and heard the flames roar and pop. Adam stepped forward toward the open front door but felt the searing heat from the sidewalk that drove him back.

The bold words show you where the narrator steps between the reader and the action and tells the reader what happens. This detracts from the reader’s experience. A scene must allow the reader to experience the action directly in order to grab him. Would you prefer to watch a friend eat a hot fudge sundae and tell you how sweet it tastes, or would you want to eat it yourself?

A gawking character is also redundant. If the scene is told from the character’s perspective, we already know that he experiences what we read. We don’t need to say the same thing twice. Here is the same sentence without the gawking character:

Direct: Adam glanced up from the corner of Kingwood and Beechurst. The starlit sky glowed orange, and thick smoke rolled across it. He spun on one heel, crunching grit on the sidewalk beneath his shoes, and ran down the street. The cool autumn breeze carried sparks and the smell the burning wood. As Adam brushed the branches of a tree out of his face, the burning house appeared.

A rushing roar filled Adam’s ears, and a wave of heat lifted the hairs on his tan arms. Shading his blue eyes with his right hand, he squinted against the blinding light. Flames engulfed every inch of the house and licked at the cloudless sky. Pops and crackles from inside the house echoed down the empty street. Adam rushed toward the front porch, but the heat seared his face and drove him back.

This time, the narrator does not water down the scene. We see no “Adam felt,” “Adam saw,” “Adam heard.” Instead, the reader is the one standing on the sidewalk, the one who sees the flames, feels their heat, hears their roar. This kind of direct experience captivates the reader and keeps him interested.

Nonphysical Gawking

A gawking character can also filter internal experiences, such as thoughts or emotions. Again, if the scene is being told from the character’s perspective, we can assume that any thoughts belong to that character (unless he or she can read thoughts or sense emotions).

Gawking: Blood soaked through the fabric, and Preston realized he had plunged the blade into Jack’s side.
This scene is told from Preston’s point of view, so he must be the one realizing something. We don’t need to state the obvious.

Direct: A red stain spread across Jack’s gut, matting the shirt to his skin. The silver blade glinted from where Preston had plunged it in Jack’s side.

The same holds true for emotions:

Gawking: I felt worried, but a breeze made me feel a little better.

This is told in first person point of view, so the narrator must be the one who felt worried. After all, he cannot feel another character’s emotions. So, stating what the narrator felt is redundant.

Direct: My stomach churned, but the crisp air cooled my feverish skin and the nausea settled for the moment.

If you take out the gawking character, the reader can experience every scene directly. Any less cheats him out of the story and, in the end, loses him.

Top Ten Writing Tips

by
Sandy Tritt
1. Get it on paper. Once you’ve written it, you can edit it. But until your story is on paper, in black and white, you have nothing.

2. Focus. Write one sentence—yes, one sentence—that states what this manuscript is about. Once you have that, you can refer to it to know if a scene belongs in this manuscript. If a scene doesn’t support the focus statement in some way, it doesn’t belong. Take a look at this seo magnifier text to speech that can be very helpful when you write.

3. Ground your reader at the beginning of each scene. Make sure your reader knows where the scene takes place, when the scene takes place, and who is present in the scene. If you’re using a controlled third person point of view, the first character mentioned should be the viewpoint character for that scene.

4. Know who your narrator is. If you are using the omniscient point of view, your narrator will be an invisible character who is present in every scene, but will not be any one character (although your narrator will have the ability to pop into any character’s head). If you are using a first person point of view, your narrator will be the “I” character. If you are using a controlled third person point of view, your narrator will be standing right next to your viewpoint character and will only be able to see, hear, smell, etc. what that character sees, hears, smells, etc.

5. Act it out. Yes, it’s been said over and over, but it’s still the first rule of writing. Don’t tell your reader what is happening—allow your reader to experience it through action and dialogue.

6. Use active voice. Don’t start a sentence with “there is” or “there are” or “there were” or “there was.” Doing so automatically puts you in passive voice. Instead of saying “there were seven cheerleaders at the mall,” say “Seven cheerleaders shopped at the mall.” Likewise, try to avoid words like “when” or “while.” “When John looked to his left, he saw the army advancing” is passive and has a gawking character. Instead, say: “John looked to his left. The army advanced.”

7. Use the strongest verbs possible. Replace “was” with “moved.” Replace “moved” with “walked.” Replace “walked” with “strolled.” Constantly search for stronger and stronger verbs. For truly, it is verbs that give a manuscript its power. Avoid adverbs—instead of saying “He walked slowly,” say “He strolled.”

8. Use an action or body language instead of dialogue tags. Challenge yourself to replace EVERY dialogue tag with an action by the character speaking. You’ll be surprised at how your story comes to life.

9. Never name an emotion. If you say, “He was angry,” you’re telling, not showing. Let us see him slam his fist on the counter. Let us feel the breeze as he storms by.

10. When in doubt, leave it out. If a sentence makes sense without “that” or “of,” leave it out. Leave out any word or phrase or paragraph or scene or chapter that is optional.