Someone has recently pointed out to me that my sentence structure could do with a bit more variety - a lot of my writing goes:

'She ..... He..... So and so......' etc.

Arrrghhhhh. I'm a chaper off finishing the rewrite and am now thinking i'll have to go through the whole thing again looking at this - *sob*

The thing is Cornerstones never pointed this out to me - mind you, they did have a lot of other points to make.

I'm just interested as to whether this is something you are consciously aware of whilst writing? whether it's something you work at??

If i go through making changes, i'm going to have to make sure it doesn't sound too contrived.

Casey

I am a bit aware of it, though with me it's more a question of my sentences being too convoluted and/or going on too long. But I have sometimes realised that I've got a row of subject-verb-object sentences and yes, it can sound a bit plodding. Whatever structure you tend to default into, it's a hard one to spot in your own writing, I think. Reading aloud you'll hear it instantly, though.

One quick fix is to try to vary them mechanically, but if the different structure doesn't spring naturally from what you're wanting to say (or doesn't come naturally to you) it can sound very contrived.

Sometimes, though, the fact that all the sentences are coming out the same is really a hint that you need to vary the pace, or the point of view, or slide into her thoughts rather than sticking to observing her actions, or some other, more profound kind of variety. In other words, ideally variety in sentences comes about from variety in what you're trying to say, not just from superficial changes.

(And yes, it's next-to-impossible to fit everything you've noticed in someones novel into the report, and another editor would have a different set of things they'd noticed but don't have room to comment on!)

Emma

Emma, i find your last comment deeply depressing!

It was reading TMOL, actually, which gave me confidence to lenghthen my sentences which, up until then, were short and staccato as if being fired from a machine gun.

I fear, however, that that is all i have done - lengthened the subject, verb, object format.

I suspect in the grand scheme of things there is not a lot i can do but read read read and get on with fresh writing - i really don't think i can face another dissection of this script.

Interesting what you say about the pace.

Thanks.

Casey

There have been times I've pointed out to people there were a lot of 'his' or 'she' in a paragraph.
I don't think it's noticable until it reaches a 'critical mass' - usually when the writer is conciously trying to replace some other device by inserting 'he' 'she' 'him' or 'her' in its stead.


- NaomiM

Casey, I've never been in your position of having a completed novel-length MS, but FWIW, based on what I have done with shorter pieces when polishing, I would take a few paras or a short scene, and experiment with rewriting it, but not for content - purely for sentence structure. So read a para and then write it fresh, using most of the same words, but not all in the same order. Focus on avoiding repetitive sentence structures but let it flow naturally within that restriction, and obviously let some of your new sentences use the structure you're trying to work away from - you don't want to go to the other extreme!

If you find this works, then you could consider doing it with the whole MS. Maybe it isn't as much as a problem as you're worrying it is, because I get the feeling you are very self-critical (mostly a good thing, but there are probably times when it isn't). But if you're completely convinced it's a problem then that would be my suggestion as to how to solve it.

Rewriting in that simple way will surely take far less time than an in-depth rewrite, since you're not making anything new - you're just fine-tuning sentence structure. I'd think of it as editing rather than rewriting, I think.

Though obviously you should listen to Emma far more than to my suggestion!

Deb

I'm aware of a similar thing with my own writing but, like yours, my Cornerstones report didn’t mention it. I've just done it again – linking two halves of a sentence together with but. It does make me wonder if we are just hyper-aware of these things, and it’s possibly not such a big problem after all. Even so, I laboriously went through TWH rewriting as many of them as I could. It took ages but it was very satisfying when I got to the end – see, I've just done it again!

Many uses of She/He can be edited out fairly easily if, as Emma says, you get further into your characters’ heads. For instance:

She heard a door slam somewhere in the house.
Can become
A door slammed somewhere in the house.
You get rid of the ‘She’ and keep your reader right in there with the character.

Of course, this might be simplifying things too much. Could you upload a section and ask for specific feedback. It might be that we can suggest improvements – or maybe just tell you we think it’s fine.

Dee

I think in the long term, reading lots is the best way of developing your range of expression. I think the mid-century authors - 1920s to 1950s - are fantastic for training your ear, because they're basically modern in thought and vocabulary, but are hugely skillful. I've just been re-reading Gaudy Night - Sayers can't write a bad sentence!

(And thanks for the comment about TMOL. I had a lot of fun with the two different voices (four, if you count Stephen's letters, narrative and nightmares as different from each other both are rather prone to long sentences, being written by me, but they're very, very different kinds of sentence!)

Emma

Casey, i don't think it will involve a wholesale rewrite of your MS. But you do need to go through it and check that you don't have a page of sentences all beginning with He, she or I. And where you have a lot of long sentences in a para, break some up into two shorter ones.

If you read out loud or download a free text to speech reader, then you will hear if you need to make changes to sentence length and order. It is important (imo) and does separate amateur writing from professional, again imo.

Good luck with it, i am looking at my MS for the same thing at the mo.

Juliet

I'm sure it won't involve a complete re-write, as Juliet says. For one thing it won't arise in dialogue passages. I don't know how you paragraph things, but if you flip through looking for longish paragraphs, and just read those aloud, you'll probably only need to tinker with one or two in each para.

And Dee's is an excellent example of how simple such changes can be, and how it can even improve things, in the sense that we hear the door as she does, rather than you telling us what she heard.

Emma

Thanks Emma!

download a free text to speech reader

I've heard about this before – what is it and how could I get it?

Dee

It's only where a cluster of similar openings becomes intrusive for the reader that there's a problem, and that's obviously a subjective area. Someone else might read the same passage and not see the repetition as an issue, or might interpret it as a deliberate stylistic device. What do other crits say, Casey? It might be me who's off the mark.

If you do decide you need to add some variety, it's not an overwhelming re-write situation. I'd say it's only a matter of zipping through at usual reading speed, spotting the odd cluster, and inserting an occasional opening word or phrase (As soon as she..., Finally..., Then...) or of taking out the he/she element altogether as in Dee's example. I've got one in the passage I'm writing at the moment, where a man's waiting for his girlfriend to come back from hospital with her test results. I've put 'It was impossible to concentrate on anything...' rather than 'He found it impossible to concentrate...'.

Dee, Emma's right, that is an excellent example and it does get the reader more into the character's head.

And Deb, i like your idea too and will certainly have a go at that for some of the longer paragraphs - i really don't think i could manage it for the whole MS though. I've been rewriting for 2 months solid, 3 hours min a day - i don't think my heart is in a massive restructuring. Your suggestion is certainly a useful technique though which i will try for paras which jump off the page at me as being repetitive in structure.

Thanks, Juliet for that advice - good luck with your MS too.

Dee, thanks for the offer of looking at some - i'll have another flick through the MS first and if i find any sections i think look truly awful to me, i might post them up.

Thanks guy, some really useful advice here.

Casey

Playing around with your example, Dee, though I still think yours is best for force and directness. Some of these aren't very good for most purposes, tho' there's nothing you might not want sometime or other. But still, there are a surprising number of possible permutations:


She heard a door slam somewhere in the house.

A door slammed somewhere in the house.

A door was slammed somewhere in the house [implying an unseen hand slamming it]

Somewhere in the house a door slammed.

Somewhere in the house a door was slammed.

The slam of a door, somewhere in the house, made her jump.

A door slammed. Where had that come from? [Or 'Was it the wind?']

From somewhere in the house came the slam of a door.

Slam!
But it was a only door, she decided, somewhere in the house.

The house shook as somewhere a door slammed.

She listened. A door slammed. Which one?

Emma

Thanks, Kate - yes, it was your comment and no one has ever mentioned it before - but you know when someone says something about your writing and you suddenly think 'Blimey, they're right, why haven't i noticed that before?' - well, that was one of those moments- so thanks, you've done me a favour.

Hmm, good example.



Casey

Arrrghhhhh. I'm a chaper off finishing the rewrite and am now thinking i'll have to go through the whole thing again looking at this - *sob*

Can totally identify with this feeling. But I re-read and re-write for specific strands or elements about twenty times after the final version's 'finished'. If you're only looking for one thing, this sort of re-writing can be a fairly fast process.