Perhaps you remember this exchange from the movie Amadeus:

Emperor Joseph II: “My dear, young man, don’t take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It’s quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that’s all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.”

Mozart: “Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?”[1]

Wow. Talk about a perfect response to an ignorant critic—never mind that the critic happened to be an Emperor! I guess that would qualify as a 3-star review. (It’s worth noting that a few lines earlier, the orchestra’s conductor had set the Emperor up by feeding him that criticism. Talk about helping throw someone under the bus! But I digress….)

The truth is, it is possible to have too mu...

Ah, the dreaded expository lump, that moldering mass of minutiae, that exhausting example of authorial excreta, that soggy swamp of supercilious sentences that sends the reader straight into the Slough of Despond. (Yeesh, enough with the purple prose, already!)

You know what the expository lump is, of course: that paragraph or page—or worse yet, pages—in which the author stops the story to tell you everything he knows about a particular character, setting, situation, etc. His intent is good—there are things the reader needs to know—but not all of them, not right now. And not all at once.

Unfortunately, this lump, also known as an info- or data-dump, isn’t the exclusive province of the novice writer. We all risk writing it...

Ever had one of those moments when you’re reading through a story or article and the author’s description of a place, event, or person makes you stop and say to yourself, “Wait, did I miss something?” Sure you have. We all have.

It’s OK for an author to confuse a reader if he’s doing it intentionally and in a way that makes them want—no, need—to read more. But confusing descriptions that stop the reader and interrupt the flow of the story are another matter.

When these kinds of problems show up, it’s a good bet the author either knew what she meant but didn’t realize it hadn’t come out that way on the page, or she didn’t know how to say what she was trying to express...

Painters have a lot of different tools at their disposal to create an image: oils, watercolors, acrylics, computer graphics. Photographers have light, composition, angle, framing, the capabilities of their camera and film or electronics, and of course Photoshop® and its cousins. Sculptors have stone, wood, found objects, metal, even sand.

We writers have words—hundreds of thousands of them in the English language alone—so there should never be a problem with creating a clear image, right?

Alas, we know that’s not true. It’s not how many or how few tools we have at our disposal, it’s how we use them that matters...

In the last article, I identified the general questions critiquers want to ask about scene and story pace—does it vary, is it appropriate, and if not, what needs to change—and eight factors that affect pace: sentence and paragraph length, active or passive voice, dialogue versus narrative, tone, language, description, complexity, and what’s happening.

Now let’s apply the factors to the questions.

Does the Pace Vary?

As I noted last time, even the shortest piece may have a varying pace but once you get beyond the flash-fiction story or filler article, the pace has to change. Readers need changes of pace to keep their interest...

The pace of a story is how quickly or slowly it seems to pass for the reader. It may flash by like a fighter jet at an airshow, crawl along at a speed that makes glaciers seem quick, or do something in between.

You already have a sense of pace as a reader, even though you might not be thinking about it. This article and the next one will help you be more aware of a story’s pace so you can evaluate it as you critique the work.

Genre and Pace

While we can make some general statements about pace in different genres in fiction and types of work in non-fiction, at best they’re poor guidelines...

Whenever characters speak, they’re transmitting information, to one or more other characters and/or to the reader. That information can be truth, lies, or something in-between; it can be emotional (a state of being or feeling) rather than factual; it can be directive (an order or warning) or informational; it can be direct or indirect; it can be any combination of these. This is nowhere near a complete list.

It can also be boring as hell.

What happens is that sometimes, with the best of intentions (or maybe just not knowing any better), an author will use a character to dump information on the reader, rather than doing it himself through narrative. No matter how it’s done, info-dumping isn’t a good technique.

This probl...

I am thrilled to announce that The Eternity Plague has been published! Here’s the blurb:

In 2035, Dr. Janet Hogan makes a stunning discovery: infected by five species of naturally-mutated viruses, every one of earth’s nine billion inhabitants has become immortal.

Or have they? By the time Janet learns that this immortality is an illusion, it’s too late to change people’s beliefs. Some love her for creating this miracle and the coming paradise they long for. Others hate her for what they see ahead: immoral behavior without consequence, overpopulation, famine, and worse. Zealots demand that she save people’s souls, humanity, the earth… or the viruses. Or else.

Janet realizes this awful truth: no matter what she does, no matter what anyone else wants, sooner or later, billions will ...

This article and the next one will focus on problems that are specific to dialogue.

Sometimes characters addressing each other by name is a problem, sometimes it’s not. It’s important to be able to tell the difference. Name-calling is more likely to be a problem in fiction, memoir, and creative non-fiction than in other kinds of non-fiction, because reportorial non-fiction generally uses direct quotes in a non-conversational context.

When Name-Calling Works

Let’s begin by identifying the situations where one character calling another by name is appropriate.

• One character needs to get another’s attention, such as:
  • In a moment of danger: “Bob! Run!” Alice shouted.
  • In a noisy or crowded location: “Alice, over h...

Before we get to the specific tasks and techniques this series will cover, I want to talk about something that is central to your success as a reviewer: your mind. To an extent, this means your memory, but it also has to do with your attitude about and approach to critiquing, and your level of commitment to the task.

Memory

It’s important that you have a good but specialized memory. You can’t let the words just flow in one eye and out the other, the way someone who’s reading for pleasure can. The words have to stop and make your acquaintance. Or, to put the focus in the right place, you have to make theirs.

It’s very helpful if you can recall specific kinds of details—about what a character did or said before, fo...