Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--Z is for Zigzag (the easy way to bust that cliché!)

I’m about to give you a piece of advice I got from an agent at a SCBWI New Jersey workshop. The workshop and one-on-one critique with the agent cost me a nice bit of money and a trip to Princeton, but I’m about to give it to you for FREE!

How lucky does that make you?

During my critique, the subject of clichés came up, not because my manuscript had any clichés, but because I wanted tips on how to avoid them.

The agent told me, “If everyone else goes ones way, go the other way.”

Simple, right? If everyone turns right, you turn left. If everyone zigs, you zag. If everyone is doing something one way, then it’s a cliché. Don’t do it that way. Do it the opposite way. Leave the beaten path and forge your own. It’s that easy.

When we think of clichés, we usually think of over-used expressions, like “head over heels in love.” But clichés can be bigger things, too.

All kissing scenes zig one way? Zag, and write a kissing scene that’s almost the opposite of that. That’s what I did in Ride of Your Life. If you read it, you’ll see there’s a first kiss that couldn’t have been written in any other book. It’s just so different! Gilbert’s first kiss with Amber in Why My Love Life Sucks also zags . . . and so does a kiss in the upcoming sequel, Why It Still Mega Bites. I hate kissing clichés, so of course I write kisses differently.

Everyone is writing dystopian? Zag, and write whatever the opposite of dystopian is in your eyes. (For me, that would be a science-fiction comedy.) Or zag, and write a dystopian that breaks all the clichés and completely changes what people think a dystopian novel is supposed to be! After all, no one need another dystopian novel that’s exactly like the hundreds of others already out there.

So how do you zag?

In my blog post on humor, Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge—H is for Humor (and how to create it), I mentioned the mirrors and lenses of the House of Funny. While any mirror or lens can help you zag, the best to use here is the “lens of character.” Because if you have a truly different character with a completely different way of seeing the world and interacting with it, anything viewed through the lens that is that character will be different.

Should you always zag where everyone else zigs?

 I don’t think so. But you should always zag when zigging feels somehow wrong to you, it doesn’t fit your story, or it makes your story less of what you’re trying to make it.

You should also try to consider the possibility of zagging, even if you choose to zig in the end. It should always be a choice, not something you did because you were following the crowd—or trying hard not to follow the crowd. You shouldn’t zag for zagging’s sake. You should do it because you like that’s your preferred choice.

And now I’m down to another Z: Zero!

I’ve reached the end of this blog post, which means I have zero posts left to write in the #AtoZChallenge. I did it! Hope you liked it and that it helped or at least entertained you in some way.

Maybe I’ll do it again next year, this time in April!  

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--K is for "Kill your darlings"

It’s funny how many times I’ve had to correct inexperienced writers when they talk about the piece of writing advice that says, “kill your darlings.”

Sometimes, they think “kill your darlings” means that a writer should create a darling and beloved character, and then kill that character.  

Yeah, no.

What’s funnier still is that, even though I know this isn’t what it means, I very often do kill my favorite characters. Toren dies (SPOILER ALERT: she doesn’t stay dead. That’s hardly a big spoiler, since that’s not a ghost telling Noa the story at the beginning of Toren the Teller’s Tale. ADDITIONAL SPOILER ALERT: this isn’t The Sixth Sense). I kill off Josh and Ashley in the first chapter of Ride of Your Life, and Tracy and Mack have already been dead for thirty years before the book begins. And Gilbert is already dying at the start of Why My Love Life Sucks, although that’s just so he can become a vampire and Amber’s platonic BFF, literally forever. All things considered, he probably wishes I had actually killed him, but what kind of story would that have been? I’ll tell you what kind: it would have been a very short story.

No, what “kill your darlings” means is that you should get rid of the sentences, turns of phrase or even scenes that are so exquisitely precious that they stick out in your manuscript like diamonds in a cat’s litter box. Diamonds don’t belong there, and neither do those literary darlings. They make the rest of your manuscript look bad. You can either elevate your entire manuscript to that level, or you can do the much more logical thing and “kill your darlings.” Erase them. Cut them out. Edit them out of existence.

Of course, they are darlings, which makes them hard to kill. “But I love them so much!” you might say.

True, true. But aside from being exquisite, what do they add to the story? Do they move the plot along? Do they reveal something about a main character that isn’t revealed any other way? If the answer to both is “no,” kill them. Kill those useless darlings now.

“But . . . But . . .”

*Sigh*

Look, I hear you.

Me, I’m a ruthless editor. You should see one of my mid-editing copies of Why My Love Life Sucks. I took out lots of scene and temporarily left them in the notes section so I could reconsider using them. My daughter loves this draft. She calls it the one “with the deleted scenes.” And some of those deleted scenes are pretty good. Some of them include pretty funny lines. But they didn’t fit. They were useless darlings, and they had to be killed. So I killed them. For the sake of the story as a whole, they didn’t make it into the final draft. And I’m glad they didn’t. I liked those darlings, but I love the story more. And that’s the thing—you have to love your story more.  

Okay, so here’s a compromise for anyone who’s having a hard time killing their darlings: cut and paste them into the notes. That way you can read your story with and without them. You can see if they do anything for your story, or if they’re just pretty diamonds that serve no function and don’t belong. And if you see they really don’t, but you still don’t have the heart to kill them, just take them out. I don’t mean with a gun or on a date. I mean put them aside. Make another document and put all your darlings there. Maybe one day you’ll write something where they actually move the story along. Maybe you won’t. Either way, your current story will be better without them.

Darlings only work when they serve the story. Otherwise . . . If you want readers to love the story, you have to put the story first. 

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--B is for Books

 Too Many Books?

by Shevi Arnold

Books, books,

I have books,

On all the shelves,

In all the nooks.

Books on writing,

Books on art,

Books by the boxful,

Books by the cart,

Books in a stack,

And more in the back.

Books I’ve written,

Books I’ve read,

For when I’m sittin’,

Even books in my head.

Some say I’ve too many.

I know that’s not true!

I need more books...

And more bookshelves, too.