What’s wrong with my picture book text?!

You just can’t quite put your finger on it.

You’ve written and rewritten and revised and tweaked and proofed. You’ve fabulous, well-rounded characters, the language sings, and the hilarious gags only underline the importance and depth of your theme. You had some POV issues, but you’ve fixed those now. It might be something about the pacing, but the story seems to move along all right. It must be something about the beginning… or perhaps it's about the end…

This is common in the picture book manuscripts of less experienced writers, but I’ve seen it many times in unpublished manuscripts by published authors, too: a fundamental weakness in narrative and character arc, an essential flaw of logic that affects pacing and much else. (And you can apply this to stories for older readers, too.)

If you can't put your finger on what’s wrong, it’s quite likely you simply have a problem with your skeleton. The basic narrative/character arc is your story’s skeleton. It is the structure upon which all else sits.

McGregor Museum.
Click image to visit original site.

Let’s stretch this analogy to its limit: characters are vital organs, their details and the setting are muscles, and the events within the story are like the tendons to push and pull them. The language and style are the skin, dialogue like clothing. Correct grammar and spelling are like fine jewelry. (Proper formatting is a waft of intoxicating perfume. If it stinks, an editor/agent will want to get away. If it’s pleasing, we may want to get closer.)

But it doesn't matter how fancy the clothes, or how exquisite the jewelry—if the skeleton isn’t strong and symmetrical, the story won’t stand up straight.

Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• What promise do I make to the reader in the beginning?
• Does the ending deliver upon that promise?
• Does the beginning set up the conditions for what I deliver in the end?
• Do I steadily escalate the problem I set up at the beginning all the way to the climax?
• Does the resolution come immediately after the climax?

Strong story skeletons have symmetry. The beginning and end are in balance, the bookends to the middle. One asks a question, and the other answers that question honestly. Other things may well come to light in the quest for the answer, but the beginning tells us what must be answered. The end must comply. But the middle is far from symmetrical; it is a steadily steepening slope toward the climax.

The most common narrative mistakes I see include:

• Stories that start in one place with one problem, then continue and/or end in a completely different place with quite a different problem solved. A story about a quest for a friend suddenly becomes a story about dealing with a bully.
• The protagonist changes halfway through. A story starts with a mother cat worried for her kittens, and segues into the story of a young cat who just needs a good friend.
• The parts of the narrative are not in the right places or of the right duration:

o   The manuscript has a lengthy, introduction-style beginning, rather than just diving straight into the story.

o   The climax comes too early, making the resolution far too long and often off-track, or even well into a second story.  

• The problem doesn’t escalate enough; the tension remains the same or even decreases over time.
• The correct problem is solved, but not by the protagonist.

Your story’s beginning should convey who your protagonist is, their desire, and why they want it. If the problem isn’t introduced by about two thirds of the way—or less—down the first page of your properly formatted manuscript, it’s probably running late.

Once you know how your story begins, you’ll have cues to how the story must end. The protagonist must—through their own action—either achieve their desire or have grown beyond it. How that achievement and growth comes about is all the rest of your story—the middle, ever escalating toward the inevitable climax.

And be thoughtful when defining your protagonist's real desire. The protagonist's true desire is usually not something material or concrete, though it may manifest itself that way. The protagonist’s desire for the material is a projection of a much deeper desire or emotional need. The emotional need is the “why” of the desire—why the protagonist really wants whatever they want. It’s the emotional need that must be satisfied in the end, whether or not the material desire is acquired. This is where character growth truly lies. And a strong, symmetrical story skeleton requires growth and change. 

Bad Seeds: Begin to (verb)

Consider the following:

It was dawn. Wordy-Bird began to fly to the window. She looked out at the rising sun and started to sing.

At first glance, it doesn’t really seem like anything is wrong, right? But there is an issue here, which I see in just about every manuscript I edit and sometimes in published books. It’s an issue of clunky writing, which can also become a big deal in manuscripts with blown-out word counts.

The offending phrase? Began to fly. Or its variations: began flying, started flying, started to fly.

Wordy Bird doesn’t just begin to fly to the window, she continues and finishes flying to the window, too, because in the next sentence she is there, looking out at the rising sun. So began to fly is not only unnecessarily wordy and unwieldy, it’s also lacks complete logic. Why not just write:

Wordy-Bird flew to the window.

Not only does that strengthen the sentence and complete the logic, but right there you’ve cut 28% of the words in that sentence. If this is a phrase that's consistently used in a manuscript—and when writers use began to (verb) it’s often very liberally—that can add up to a surprising number of excess and clunky words.

But consider the second sentence:

She looked out at the rising sun and started to sing.

In this context, started to sing works well. We don’t know what happens after she begins to sing, so it is suitable and actually adds weight to her act of singing to greet the dawn.  

As you become more aware of it, you’ll find that begin to (verb) and its variations rarely add more than excess words and an undesirable smattering of clunk. 

Bad Seeds: Lay and Lie

One of the Wordy Bird’s biggest pet peeves is misuse of the words lay and lie, and it's also probably the most common grammar mistake I see. 

Nestmate pointed at Baxtor. “Lay down,” he said. Baxtor laid down. Nestmate laid down beside the dog. Chickling laid on top of them.

What’s wrong with this?

“It’s lie down!” puffed Wordy Bird. “Not lay down. Unless you are actually laying the dog down, which you’re not.”

Lay is a transitive verb, so Baxtor cannot lay down—

Ok, let’s back up a bit. What’s a transitive verb? A transitive verb takes an object. For example: put. You wouldn’t say:

The dog put.

It doesn’t make sense, does it? A transitive verb must take an object for the sentence to make sense.

The dog put the bone down.

The opposite of a transitive verb is an intransitive verb, for example: run.

The dog runs.

An intransitive verb doesn’t take an object.

Lie is an intransitive verb, so it doesn’t take an object. Some of the confusion between the two verbs comes from similarities when they are inflected:

Lie, lay, lain

Baxtor lies down.

Baxtor lay down.

Baxtor has lain down.

But the transitive verb lay is inflected like this: lay, laid, laid

Baxtor lays the bone down.

Baxtor laid the bone down.

Baxtor has laid the bone down.

So when Nestmate wants the dog to be on the floor, he should say:

“Lie down, Baxtor. Good boy.”

Then he can lie beside the dog and Chickling will lay herself over both of them and everyone will be happy. Especially Wordy Bird. 

Bad Seeds: Wow, It Can Really Do That?

I’d like you to take a look at the following paragraph:

As Wordy Bird perched there watching the sun rise beyond the nest, her belly rumbled, thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast. Her wings flapped faster, just knowing how good it would taste. When she landed, her head tilted, listening for that telltale rustle of worm flesh beneath the earth.

What is wrong with these sentences—grammatically? (Don’t worry, I’m not going to weigh you down with too much grammar-junkie jargon today.)

Let’s look at the first:

As Wordy sat there watching the sun rise beyond the nest, her belly rumbled, thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast.

This is a sentence of a kind that I see in writers’ manuscripts on an almost daily basis, so that means a lot of writers are making this error. Let’s break it into parts:

As Wordy sat there watching the sun rise beyond the nest,

her belly rumbled,

thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast.

The first two work together, right?

As Wordy sat there watching the sun rise beyond the nest, her belly rumbled…

What about this part:

…her belly rumbled, thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast.

Do you see the problem yet?

If you don’t see it yet, ask yourself this: who or what is thinking of the worm? In this sentence construction, it’s her belly. And apart from giving us a gnarly case of butterflies when we’re about to do something scary, bellies are not known for their capacity for intelligent thought.  

Now, if you go back to the second and third sentences, perhaps you'll see why I have a problem with those, too. 

Some of you, including those of you who have worked with me before or taken one of my classes, may pick up on at least one other (potential) problem when the three sentences are put together. Can work out what it* is?

* Hint: try reading them aloud. 

The moral of story is: Don't dangle your modifiers.

Bad Seeds: Quick, Quicker, Quickly

Quickly is an adverb. An adverb modifies a verb. E.g.:

Wordy Bird flew quickly.

Quicker is not an adverb. It should not modify a verb. Quicker is an adjective, hence the following is wrong:

Nestmate flew quicker than Wordy.

It should be:

Nestmate (thought he) flew more quickly than Wordy.

Quicker can be used like this:

But Wordy knew she was quicker.

Quick is the positive adjective. Quicker is the comparative degree of quick. Quickest is the superlative degree of quick. They are all adjectives. And adjectives modify nouns, not verbs.

Put it together and what have you got?

Nestmate was not very quick. He could not fly quickly at all, and his strides were about as quick as a worm in dried mud. In fact, among the quicker members of the nest, he had quickly earned the affectionate yet dubious nickname Slow-walkin'-Jones-slow-talkin'-Jones. It was a nickname none could say quickly. (In truth, Chickling was the quickest of the three.)

But of course there are always exceptions to the rule. Quicker and quick are sometimes used as adverbs in idiomatic speech. So in dialogue, Chickling might say:

"Mummy, come quick!"

To which Wordy Bird would, of course, reply:

"I'm coming as quickly as I can."

Bad Seeds: there was a noun verb-ing

From time to time, I’ll be posting little writing and editing tidbits, which I call ‘Bad Seeds.’ These are little issues that can weaken your writing in subtle ways, but if used frequently enough can make your writing style appear unpolished, possibly even undeveloped. Once you become aware of bad seeds, they should start to jump out at you.

Today’s Bad Seed is one I most often see when a writer is trying to describe a scene or a character. For example:

There were two big bookcases overflowing with books standing against the far wall of Wordy Birdie’s office. There was a deer skull, which she’d found while hiking, sitting on one of the shelves. There was another bookcase, full of dictionaries and books about grammar and writing, hanging above her desk. She had pictures of mountains and bugs and insects sticking to her pin board, and there was a dish of colored pebbles and sea glass lying on the glossy wooden desk.

This is how I would edit it:

There were Ttwo big bookcases overflowing with books standing stood against the far wall of Wordy Birdie’s office. There was aA deer skull, which she’d found while hiking, sittingsat on one of the shelves. There was aAnother bookcase, full of dictionaries and books about grammar and writing, hanginghung above her desk. She had pPictures of mountains and bugs and insects sticking to stuck to her pin board, and there was a dish of colored pebbles and sea glass lyinglay on the glossy wooden desk.

So we end up with:

Two big bookcases overflowing with books stood against the far wall of Wordy Birdie’s office. A deer skull, which she’d found while hiking, sat on one of the shelves. Another bookcase, full of dictionaries and books about grammar and writing, hung above her desk. Pictures of mountains and bugs and insects stuck to her pin board, and a dish of colored pebbles and sea glass lay on the glossy wooden desk.

Can you see the difference in strength and tone between the original and the final copy? The final has a more active quality, a solidity even, which the original lacked.

Take a look at your WIP. Do you see that kind of sentence structure?

This just in...

I've read two great blogs posts in the wee small hours:

Editor Alvina Ling discusses what her different kinds of rejection letters really mean here.

And Edittorrent lists some more of the things that scream “Amateur!” to an editor.

Enjoy.

I’m snowed under with manuscripts at the moment, but I’ll be back.

Cheep-cheep!
WB

Bad Seeds: Looking and Turning

I never cease to be truly grateful for what I’ve learned about writing from editing other people’s work. But when one reads other people’s manuscripts all day, every day, one starts to notice the same sorts of things over and over and over… and after a time (usually a fairly short time), these things go from being notable and interesting to being downright annoying. Now don’t think I’m becoming complaining and snarky—it is my my job and I love every day of it. If I didn’t love it, I’d hardly be taking the time to share this with you, would I?

But I do believe these are just the kinds of things that don’t belong in a MS. Wordy Bird calls them Bad Seeds. I thought you might find it helpful if I share some Bad Seeds with you every now and then. Because once you’ve really tasted a Bad Seed, rolled it around in your beak and spat out the husk, you may not want to try one again.

Bad Seed #1: Turning and Looking

Imagine Nestmate and I are having a conversation. I might write about it like this:

Wordy Bird kissed Chickling goodnight and flew down the stairs to tidy up the living room. She turned to Nestmate. “Matey,” she said, looking at him, “I note you haven’t done the dishes.”

Nestmate turned and looked at her. “I rinsed them for you,” he said. “Geez, I thought you’d think that was helpful.”

Wordy Bird looked at him. “Nestmate, rinsing the dishes and lining them up so I can wash them, is the kind of help one gives when one wants to appear as if one’s being helpful, but when one’s real intention is to watch the Patriots.”

Don’t you think all this turning and looking is implied? When we have a conversation, we usually face the person and look at them when we speak to them. In regular dialogue, turning and looking is implied. It’s when a character DOESNT turn and look at someone during conversation that it becomes interesting and therefore noteworthy.

For example:

Nestmate watched Tom Brady score another touchdown. “You’re always nagging me,” he muttered.

Wordy Bird studied her toes. “Not always,” she said quietly. She turned and looked at the teetering pile of dishes. “Now are you going to help me, or what?”

The bottom line is this, and it’s about much more than looking and turning: readers, even readers who happen to be small people, do not need to have everything spelled out for them. Not only can it be boring and tedious, it doesn’t leave room for the reader to read between the lines, to fill in the gaps, to imagine.