Cut!

Read Holt Uncensored on ten common writing mistakes and how to avoid them. A lot of articles of this nature are interchangeable, but I love this one. It picks up on the overuse of filler words. I think of them as verbal tics. They're pervasive in real life and can make dialog more realistic. But here's what Holt has to say:

"Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally - these and others are words that promise emphasis, but too often they do the reverse. They suck the meaning out of every sentence."

Writing short stories for competitions concentrates the mind because there's usually a word limit. I tend to write the story first, then have to cut a few hundred words to make the limit.

This is incredibly good for my writing.

The cuts happen in several iterations. First time through I remove the obvious dross. Then I think the story's perfect. But I still have to lose 200 words.

I run through a few more times, becoming more ruthless but wincing with each cut. Whole sentences are culled. I become convinced that the story is losing its character.

I take a break. When I come back I'm amazed at how much more effective the pared-down story is. I might still have to eliminate twenty-odd words. Make it forty to be on the safe side. But the few remaining dispensable words tend to leap out on the last run.


Two of the stories I've put through this process benefitted enormously. Sparse prose rules! The third story was just too long for the word limit. It retained its sense after the cuts, but I felt it lost some of its humour. I will probably reinstate much of it before I send it out into the world again.


Cutting ruthlessly throughout my novel would make it so much better. But there are over 300 pages. It'll be no joke. Of course, I discarded some of the dross on previous read-throughs. But while reading Holt's article I did word searches... and an appalling amount of this stuff remains, begging to be hunted down and killed.


I appear to be especially fond of the word 'really'. Really, it's everywhere. It's really scary actually.

Still smiling

Yesterday a friend read my story 'Only Four Girls' to her parents. When she told me, I was so worried. She said they loved it. But what if they found it boring or silly or amateurish and she was too polite to say?

Gradually overnight it has sunk in - hang on, it's going to be read to the whole country! On radio! And that was decided by total strangers! So it couldn't be too bad.

How cool is that?

Happy Days

In a recent post on consistency I mentioned a short story I wrote for a competition.

Yesterday I discovered that the story has been short-listed - for the Francis MacManus memorial award! This means that it will be broadcast on Ireland's state radio station RTE 1.

The winners haven't been announced yet, but I don't think I'll be one of them. But a broadcast of one of my stories! Yay! A link to it should be forthcoming in a few months' time.

And now I have a first line for my "writer's CV". It'll still be only one line long...but that's a big improvement.

Read this story

I read a very good short story this morning over on ElectricSpec.

It's one of those slow burners. It's been on my mind on and off all day. I read another story in the same issue - I won't say which one - and it was totally forgettable.

What was it about The Girl Door that compelled me not just to finish it but also to think about it? It'd be interesting to know if it has the same effect on others.

Hobgoblin of little minds: essential quality for a mystery writer

Back when I last re-read my novel, I said I'd address read-through concerns in future blog entries.

My one-year-old (hi Den Den), Website work and other concerns intervened. But now I'm coming back to this topic, and today I'm going to talk about consistency.

For ages I was extremely complacent and didn't see consistency as an issue. I assumed that all the details of my story were neatly tabulated in my mind. It never occurred to me that they had grown dim behind a mist of frequent edits and plot changes.

Then I wrote a ten-page short story and sent it to my sister for feedback. She's the ideal reviewer; sympathetic, speedy, scrupulous and not afraid to criticise.

She replied with a number of questions, amongst which was: "I thought the mother was dating Mr. Collins. Who's the Mr. Davis on page 9?"

Mr Collins only appears on page 7 of the story. You would think that I could keep his name consistent for four pages. But no; the poor man's name changed half-way through his subplot. This rendered the story unsatisfying verging on incomprehensible.

And I'd thought it was perfect! I was JUST about to send it off to a competition when I ran it past my sister for safety. Thank goodness! (I still don't know if I won anything btw).


I was horribly shaken by this experience. If I couldn't even keep Mr. Collins-Davis on the straight and narrow for four pages, what were the chances for my 300-plus-page novel?

On examination, I discovered that:

- Dashing Harold's mother's name was Julia the first time we met her but Laura thereafter.
- Cynthia's desk at the office, located in the basement in the morning, was magically elevated to the third floor by afternoon.
- The murder weapon was hanging on a wall; 'high up' on page 47 but 'fairly low down' by page 160.
- Cynthia's co-workers thought their boss had died of a heart-attack on Tuesday, but were clued in to all the gory murder details by Wednesday.

(Actually that last is not so unlikely. Most offices are a hotbed of gossip and Airwolfe (my fictional company) is definitely no exception.)

A murder mystery riddled with inconsistent detail is bad news. Mystery readers deduce while reading; for example:

'ok the dagger is high-up, and we heard earlier that Liz is very short so she wouldn't be able to reach it, so she's not the killer'.

Then later on they're told that the dagger was low down. Furthermore Liz appears to have grown by six inches.

Definitely not good.

Agent for a day

Have a look at this 'Agent For a Day' competition over at Nathan Bransford's blog. A fun exercise for the aspiring writer.

I expect to be humbled by the experience of participating. Wouldn't be hard, says you.