See https://velvetdelenn.blogspot.com/2016/04/damning-up-your-writing-flow.html for part 1!
Part 2 of Damning up Your Writing Flow
In part one, I spoke about how data dumps and repetition can ruin the flow of a story. I went over the concepts on the surface without really touching on how to avoid them, or how to fix them. Or even how to recognize them. My bad. But it’s too much of a topic to have in one blog, so I decided to break it down so that it’s in more manageable chunks. So today’s blog is focusing on the data dump, and next will be the repetition. I will use examples that I have come up with, and not ones from actual published groups, without getting into trouble with copyright.
The Data Dump.
First off, the Data Dump is basically putting all of your character info all in one place, which slows down the pacing of the story.
John was a tall 6 foot 4 man, with long brown hair, bedroom brown eyes, and a scar running down the length of his face. He usually wore brown khakis and a blue shirt, with a pocket protector, and a pin stripe tie. His close cropped hair was more for ease of taking care of than actual style. He grew up in Cleveland Ohio, the middle child of six, his older brothers Robert, and Richard, along with his younger sister Maggie, and younger brother Sam had had a happy childhood. Their parents were Sam and Rita Johnson, and were both retired. His father had been a security guard, and his mother a nurse at the Trinity Local Hospital. His older brothers were solicitors and his younger siblings were teachers and he, well he was a serial killer.
Okay so that last was to wake you up, to make you pay attention. Did you nod off? Did you follow the details, or try to skip ahead? This is very pedantic boring writing. I’m even fighting off the yawns!
Good writing gives you just enough details to set the scene, to give you an image of the character. It only gives enough to get the story interesting and dynamic.
So rewriting this, we don’t need to know about most of these details, They can be done as a general description. And start out with a bang, so you get your reader immediately engaged. Two lessons for the price of one :)
John was a serial killer. Though to look at him, you wouldn’t think so. He looked like a college professor, over 6 feet, cropped blond hair, brown eyes that brimmed full of intelligence. He came from a good family, a mix of Lawyers and nurses, he was the only one to turn out bad.
So you see there, by leaving things vague, it has been punched up, made lively and active by just a few of the details that were from the first example. The former example is fine, for a first draft, and it helps make a character bible (more on that in later issues).
It carries the story, and engages the reader immediately, no falling asleep there (disclaimer, yours truly does not take responsibility for keeping you up at night reading, and making you oversleep so that you and already established earlier in the work later, well it takes me out of the story. Taking you out of the story makes it harder for one to get back into the story. You want to make your reader want to finish it in one setting, and/or stay up at night!
Repetition can be used for great effect, I’ve used it in poetry (which is a bit more acceptable at times). But it should be used very sparingly, if you use it at all. If there is a way to do so with different wording, then that would be the best thing. Using repetition sounds almost like you are writing a grocery list.
So examples of repetition.
Using poor John again, yea, Serial Killer John. But he loves cats, so he can’t be all bad, or can he? Muwahahaha.
John got up in the morning, putting on his work clothes. His work clothes consisted of; black jeans, black t shirt and he wore black ski mask, and black tennis shoes. He put his tools in his black tool belt, and they all had black handles. He took pride in his work.
So the changes would be to minimize the use of the word black. Lump together the details of his clothes.
John got up in the morning, putting on his work clothes. Which consisted of, jeans, t-shirt, tennis shoes and ski mask, all in black. He put his matching color tools in his a batman tool belt. He took pride in his work, nothing but professional.
There we have all of the clothes mentioned followed by the color. Got rid of the second clothes as well by using the “which consisted of…”
The above are just rough examples of how to see what I’m talking about, and examples on how to fix these. The writing is much smoother, don’t you think?
When I wrote my first chapter of Stormraevyn, I worked all the visual details in as sources of actions. Like describing Miranda's hair as she flipped it over her shoulder. The other details I worked in as I described her first change into the Raven. So you can work things in almost as separate characters.
There is a few things that can enhance a story or kill it. Too many details can do that, and too many at one time can bring your story to a screaming halt.
When you work them into the action, you get a good picture/image in your head of what your character looks like, without sacrificing flow, or stopping action. The flow is what brings your reader along with you, and the story evolves naturally. Can you break flow? Breaking flow can be done. I tried to think of a story that was effectively told that way. I came up with Memento, which I saw as a movie. The story is told in chunks of time, the main character suffered injuries which caused his brain damage. His long term memory was gone, and was only able to remember fifteen minutes at a time. He is trying to solve the mystery of who killed his wife, and he would tattoo his skin, so that he would remember the flow, or not stop it.
Take this following example.
The woman's heels clicked on the tile floor, as her red sequined dress floated around her ankles. The gentle swish of the beading on the bottom of the dress alerted the Ushers of her coming closer. They smiled and pulled the door open, she smiled and thanked them as she passed through. He would be waiting for her..
Typically the term flow to me, means that you can read it without being halted. It’s the ease with which the story is read.
Think about all the stories that you have loved reading. The common denominator isn’t just great characters, settings, or plots; it’s the ease in which you read things. The flow is what makes the story enjoyable, and memorable, you don’t think about it, you don’t really notice it’s there, and you really shouldn’t see it either.
Opening paragraph maybe?
As a writer, reading has been ruined for me. As a writer, I pick apart the work that I’m reading, and I can’t just step back and read for pleasure like I used to. If I’m lucky, I can put that on hold for a bit, and that is when a story is enjoyable for me. If I have to pick it apart and stop and reread portions of what I had just read, the flow has been interrupted.
Flow is the story. It’s what tells the story, putting the characters through the plot, the setting, the whole kit and caboodle. Without flow, you wouldn’t have a story, you’d have a mishmash of the bare bones, stilted and awkward. It’s the mark of a professional writer.
Flow is hard to achieve at times. It doesn’t come naturally . It takes rewrites, edits, and elbow grease to get it to that point.
If someone is asking, “Does this sound right?” or “I think that something is missing, but I can’t put my finger on it.” Then you are most likely talking about flow.
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