(Re-blogged from the Writer's Digest site...)
In her session at ThrillerFest, Catherine Coulter—who has had a
stunning 62 New York Times bestsellers—shared her wisdoms on how to
“Kill ‘Em Clean: Writing Sharp, Fast and Deadly.” These are the basics,
Coulter said, you must master
before you worry about
finding an agent, or dive too deeply into your book.
“Always kill with lean writing,” she said. “Sloppy writing is not
acceptable. … You don’t want to end up being a murder victim in your own
book.”
1. Nix the adjectives.
“Treat adverbs like cloves of garlic,” Coulter said. “A few go a long
way.” Moreover, listen to the way your prose sounds—“If you wouldn’t
say something aloud, then don’t write it. All you’ve got to do is read
it aloud, and therein lies the truth.” Coulter added that nothing any of
us write is set in stone—you’re allowed to tear up the bad stuff, and
start anew.
2. Avoid other words for “said,” and avoid redundancies.
Cut “She joked.” “He quipped.” “Damn you to hell, he yelled
furiously.” As Coulter said, it’s like writing, “I’m sorry, he
apologized.” You don’t need all the excess word fat. You want to be as
straightforward as possible. Coulter said every time you use a
substitute for “said,” the reader blinks—and you’ve pulled him out of
the scene. Instead, you want constant forward motion. “Never let him
escape with weak writing. … You’ve got to trust yourself that what the
characters say will indicate clearly what they’re thinking and feeling.”
3. Excise the exclamation marks.
In Coulter’s opinion, you’re allowed three per book. Ditch the rest.
Good prose shouldn’t require them, except in rare cases. “Three is all
you get, so use them wisely.”
4. Forget the euphemisms.
Blue orbs for eyes?
Nope.
Coulter
said to make your prose nuanced—you want the perfect word to convey your
exact meaning, and you don’t want your readers to get stalled out for
even a millisecond.
5. Don’t fall into stereotypes.
“Make your characters unique and true to themselves”—especially bad
guys. “Make them real.” And concerning physical appearance, make your
characters stunning knockouts only if that’s a key factor in how fellow
characters see them. Coulter once gave a character a broken nose to
prevent him from being too handsome. “Have a very good reason for
whatever you do.” And give characters some sort of “tag,” some quirk
that will make them real.
6. Use caution in sex scenes.
They’re difficult to pull off. Coulter’s advice: “Do not, on pain of
death, do nitty gritty body parts.” “And do not overwrite.” “Don’t use
dialogue that would make the reader barf.” Make the scenes funny and
fun.
7. Avoid endless introspection.
Pacing is key, Coulter said. And too much introspection kills pacing.
Furthermore, she said that if a character can say something aloud
instead of think it, then by all means say it aloud.
8. Skip over-the-top violence and language.
Have an intense violent scene that doesn’t actually do anything for
the plot of the story? Cut it. “If you’re doing it for shock value, it’s
gratuitous and you don’t need it.”
9. “And above all, don’t take yourself too seriously.”
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