Does Your Novel Suffer From Flat Writing?

by C. Patrick Schulze

Listen to a PODCAST of this article.

One bane of the writer's existence is flat writing that comes off to your reader as dull or lacking impact. It slips into writers' work with little notice and will destroy a wonderful novel in no time at all.

How do you determine if your writing is flat? Allow people you don't know to read your work. They'll inform you in a hurry. However, the best way is to keep your eye open for how you respond to your reading. If it doesn't "wow" you, it's flat.

Here are some tips to overcome flat writing.

     1. Cut, Cut, Cut

     2. Choose Your Nouns and Verbs with Care

     3. Eliminate Passive Voice

     4. Play with Your Words

     5. Trust Your Muse

Let's now look at each of these in more detail.

Cut, Cut, Cut: If your writing sounds flat, it's often due to excessive words that don't add to the plot or even the meaning of your scene. To overcome this, review each word as to its necessity in your novel. Let's consider the following example.

     "Jason went to the store to pick up his weekly groceries."

If we review this sentence, we see much of it is unimportant. Right away, we can drop the phrase, "went to the store," as this action is obvious by the word, "groceries." We might also be able to cut "weekly," unless this time period is needed for the plot. Your final sentence might be:

     "Jason picked up his groceries."

Better, but still pretty dull, don't you think?

Choose Your Nouns and Verbs with Care: Let's consider the corrected sentence above for this example. If we just read the words, there's little interest even in our corrected sentence. After all, grocery shopping is about as mundane as life gets. So, let's pay attention to the NOUNS AND VERBS to see if we can't spice this puppy up. What if we rewrote that sentence as follows:

     "Jason raced to grab his groceries."

You can see by choosing more specific verbs, this sentence came alive. With the word, "raced," all of a sudden we've instilled the sense of speed or pace, and thus, more interest. The secret, of course, is to choose the correct verbs and nouns to fit the scene.

Eliminate Passive Voice: We've all heard about the inherent weakness of Passive Voice in fiction. It's sin is the way it makes it more difficult for a reader to tell who's doing what. And a slow read, is a boring read. There's more on PASSIVE VOICE here.

Play with Your Words: Sometimes writers get so caught up in the minutia of the craft of writing, we forget to write out of the box, so to speak. Go ahead and try something new and unusual. Write that simile the way it popped out of your head. Go on and use that odd description or that risky scene.

After you do this, set it aside for a while then review it to see if it still works for you. If it does, leave it in. If it doesn't, well, reread suggestion number one of this article.

Trust Your Muse: As with recommendation number four, set things aside then go back and reread your work. This allows you to forget the subtle nuisances of your thought process when you first wrote out whatever comes off as flat.

As you return to your work, if you're not sure if the words you've chosen enhance your novel, listen to that nagging voice from deep within you. That's your Muse and she's rarely wrong. Don't try to outthink her or rationalize away your rejection of her coaxing. Just trust the woman. She's your best friend in life, let alone in your writing.

If your writing is flat, disinteresting, dull, lifeless or any of those other synonyms, readers will put your book down. Worse than that, they'll create a negative buzz about your novel. Focus on the most compelling writing you can produce and things will fall in line for you.

Has your work ever suffered from flat writing? What did you do to overcome it?

Until we meet again, know I wish for you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze

Author of the emerging novel, "Born to be Brothers"

Why is Passive Voice Considered Taboo?

by C. Patrick Schulze

Listen to a PODCAST of this article.

The answer to the title of this article is, it's not. Surprised? Passive voice is not evil, nor is it an error in WRITING. In fact, it's a legitimate and normal way to write. For example, did you know it's widely used in scientific writing?

Then why do "they" say we need to eliminate passive voice from our novel writing? It's because it's more difficult to read as it shifts verb and subject position within a sentence. It, therefore, reduces the clarity of your writing. That is, it's more difficult to tell who's doing what. Other reasons include people tend to remember active voice better and some have trouble with even understanding the sentence formation.

So, if we accept we should eliminate passive voice from our novel writing, let's first define passive voice so we can locate and eradicate it. Passive voice is a form of the verb, "to be" conjoined with a past participle. That's not much help, is it?

To break down that definition, let's review the forms of the verb, "to be." They are: are, was, am, been, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being. Simple enough.

The past participle, well, that's more difficult. One definition I found said it's a form of a verb that can function as an adjective, and is used with an auxiliary verb to indicate tense, aspect, or voice. Again, that's not much help.

Think of it like this. In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action. The secret here is to look for verbs that end in "-ed." If these verbs are preceded by a form of the verb, "to be," you often have passive voice. Exceptions exist to this "-ed" concept, but if you understand the "-ed" aspect to this, those exceptions will become easy to spot. Here are some examples of passive voice:

The shoes had been polished by John.

The problem was explained by Mary.

How do you fix passive voice?

To fix passive voice, just reword the sentence by eradicating the offensive words. Here are a couple examples.

Passive: The shoes had been polished by John

Active: John polished the shoes.

Passive: The problem was explained by Mary.

Active: Mary explained the problem.

In these simple examples, you see not only how to reword, but how changing the passive voice to active makes your writing more concise and easier to understand.

Is there ever a time when you do use Passive voice in fiction?

Sure. You use passive voice when you want to highlight the subject, if it's central to the story. Your example follows.

The murder weapon was stolen by John.

First, in this case, we have an exception to the "-ed" rule as this verb ends in "-en." No problem, the concept is the same.

However, in this example, I ask you to assume the theft by John is central to the story. Now, the passive voice, if used this once, would stand out to a reader and give the sentence more impact. Yes, it's a subtle technique, but under the pen of an accomplished writer, it works well to add emphasis.

You can also use the passive voice when you don't want people to know who did what. For example, in a detective story someone might say:

It's gone! The knife was stolen!

Remember passive voice is not the great evil it's portrayed. It's simply not the ideal use of the written word in most fiction, though it does have its place.

Are there times when you've employed passive voice on purpose? Why?

Until we speak again, know I wish for you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze

Author of the emerging novel, "Born to be Brothers"