Blog for Bristol Services Intl.

QUESTION:

A writer-client asks: “I am doing a rewrite on my second book. The publisher wants a rewrite removing all “ly” adverbs and she said that there is too much telling.   Right now, I am not seeing it. I do know the rules (using stronger active verbs instead of passive verbs or verb phrases with either gerunds—‘-ing’ words—or adverbs—‘-ly’ words).  I am usually pretty good at it, but I sometime have a problem. With this story I am having a problem. Your help would be appreciated.”

SUGGESTION:

 I’m sure you can work through the revisions. Understanding the importance of active verbs is the first task. But seeing past our own “story” to enforce those “rules” can be tough.

 This technique might help. Like doing each sentence by itself and doing the book backwards! You’d take the LAST sentence and look at it alone. Use the “rules” to activate the verb and remove adverbs. Then do the previous sentence, etc.

The reason is that, once we’ve written a story, we KNOW  (or anticipate!) what the next sentence will be. Anything OTHER than what we expect seems …. well, wrong. The benefit of doing this backward, one-sentence-at-a-time method is that you isolate each sentence, NOT looking at overall story continuity at all, so you can concentrate on the verb situation without expectations nagging your subconscious.

WARNING:You must, however, be sure to NOT read anything other than that single sentence at a time until you are totally done with this backwards sentence approach. Then … read the whole from the start without stopping. How does it sound? Some spots will just “zing” I’ll bet.; others might be pretty awkward. Then re-read again to revise and keep those sentences that have suddenly perked up. Change any inconsistencies, improve transitions, etc.

At least for some writers, this is a way to clear the mind of past associations of the words and allow you to concentrate on a specific technique alone.