Mixing It Up

On March 11, 2015, Tracey Dyck wrote, Does anyone have advice on varying sentence structure? I’ve discovered that I overuse a certain structure in my novel. (I forget what that type of sentence is called–bad me–but it looks like this: “Bob drove to the market, whistling along the way.” It’s the “ing” phrase that keeps cropping up.) It sounds like a basic problem, easily solved, but I’ve started highlighting every use of that structure in my manuscript…Chapters one and two have almost 50 uses each. Sometimes there are half a dozen in the space of a few paragraphs, and other times I go a whole page without one. Anyway, tips/thoughts would be helpful! 🙂

Kenzi Anne sympathized: I have this exact same problem–and it’s driving me crazy!!! I’ve been trying to switch up my sentence structure, but my brain always defaults back. I have no idea how to stop it, either 🙁

Elisa suggested: Well, this may sound cliche, but read an author whose writing structure is very different from your own. I would probably suggest reading Austen, because she has a very unique, very distinct writing structure. I find myself talking and thinking in Austenese (as I call it) after I read anything by her. Maybe try reading PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Then start writing. This always helps me. Her writing is so vastly different from my own that when it takes over my mind it warps my writing structures and my writing comes out very different from what it normally is. Later I come back and edit through it to make it my own again, but the structure is different, and it helps me unstick from my repetitive tendencies.

I reread Pride and Prejudice (for the jillionth time) in the middle of writing Ella Enchanted, and, without realizing, fell into Austenese. My writing group was sure I’d gone nuts. I stopped and revised, but I still think Ella has the right sensibility for Austen! Elisa’s strategy worked for me.

We writers are often permeable, by which I mean that writing styles infiltrate us and come out through our fingers, so I love Elisa’s idea. Here’s a prompt: Read a chapter of a book you love. And another. Read something by Dickens, by Emily Bronte, by her sister Charlotte. Then write, and don’t analyze your sentences until your writing session is over. Then look back and see what happened.

We can also imitate directly. Here’s another prompt: Look at a paragraph in a book you admire and analyze it. In poetry school, I had to do this with a poem last semester and then write a new poem following the exact pattern of the old one, which took me way out of my usual writing style. If you’re writing narration, choose a long narrative paragraph. If you’re writing dialogue, a speech paragraph, or several, in the case of dialogue. Use the pattern you’ve discovered when you write the next paragraph in your WIP.

Below is the beginning of Peter Pan by James M. Barrie:

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

Let’s analyze. I’m not a grammarian, and I will probably mess up the technicalities in my description. Please forgive me.

Short first sentence, six words, two commas. Except restricts the word all that starts the sentence. Second sentence: two independent clauses joined by and. We can count the words if we want to. (If I were writing that sentence, I’d end with a colon, so that the second and third sentences would be joined.) Third sentence, same as the second. (Barrie seems not to have worried about variety!) Fourth sentence: independent clause followed by dependent clause that incorporates an exclamatory sentence of dialogue. (In my opinion, Barrie was a very supple writer.) Fifth sentence: two independent clauses joined by but. Sixth and seventh sentences: short and declarative without clauses. Notice that the sixth sentence ends with the same word that the seventh begins with, two. That repetition of two gives the paragraph ending punch. We can adopt the same strategy, not always, but occasionally.

Now look at a narrative paragraph of your own and recast it, following Barrie’s example. You may not succeed entirely, but I suspect you’ll substantially change up what you’ve been doing.

For expert help, we can do an online search on sentence structure to see what we have to work with. But we don’t want to get too academic. Sentence fragments, for example, are okay in fiction if they work. Exclamations are fine. The comma splice (independent clauses connected by only a comma) are a device that writers sometimes use, especially if each clause is short and meaning is clear. Almost anything goes in dialogue if the character speaking really would talk the way we’ve written–and if the meaning is clear.

Let’s take Michelle Dyck’s sample sentence and fool around with it. I understand that it’s meant just as an example and not deathless prose. Here it is:

Bob drove to the market, whistling along the way.

What are the possibilities?

Bob whistled as he drove to the market.
As he drove to the market, Bob whistled.
Bob drove to the market. He whistled the entire distance.
Bob drove to the market and whistled the entire distance.
Whistling “Clementine,” Bob drove to the market.

There may be more, and I’m not claiming that any of these are better than the original. The two-sentence solution is definitely worse. But they are alternatives.

We can incorporate the previous or the following sentence into our revision, the one that comes before or after the whistling. Suppose that, just before he drives off, Bob receives a kiss. We might then write: Molly planted a kiss on Bob’s astonished lips and sent him off in his car, where he whistled “All You Need Is Love” from her house to the market, where he bought a bouquet of long-stemmed roses.

Or we can use what’s going on in the scene, like this: Bob whistled the old repertory–“Home On the Range,” “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”–while his daughter stared stonily out the window. When they pulled into the market parking lot, he grinned. “You used to love those songs, sweetie.”

This strategy uses liveliness to introduce variety into our prose. Again recognizing that our sample sentence is just an example for discussion purposes, when we really write in our story, it’s usually (not always) better to name the song being whistled, which will tell us a little data point about our character. If Bob is whistling tunelessly, it’s good to know that, too. And in most cases, it’s good to name the store. In my part of the country, Whole Foods has a different ring from the A&P. Or it may be a purely local store, and then the name, whatever it is, will add local color. We can make up the name if we like, to give an indication of setting.

Here are four prompts:

∙ Use this in a story: Bob whistled as he drove, his favorite tune, of course, the anthem of his cult: “Rising Star Shining.” And the bug under his seat picked up every note.

∙ Pick a paragraph in a book you love that isn’t from this era, could be one of the authors mentioned above. Modernize the sentences.

∙ Pick a section of dialogue by one of these authors and transform it into modern speech. You may have to break up long paragraphs to do this.

∙ Try my Barrie example above. Use his paragraph as a template for a revision of one of yours.

Have fun, and save what you write!

80 Responses on “Mixing It Up”

  1. Tracey Dyck says:

    Thank you for answering my question! Your advice is very helpful. =)
    The crazy thing is, I’m actually reading Pride and Prejudice right now. What a coincidence!

  2. girl_artist says:

    One day a long time ago, my teacher told me to add variety to a certain sentence. Instead of “She was momentarily dazed. It was an unsettling thing to behold. They were there at last!”, she suggested, “She was dazed, momentarily, as it was an unsettling thing to behold, but they were there at last!” It was a complex sentence structure, but now it’s become one of my favourite sentences.

  3. girl_artist says:

    Oh and I tried to read Pride and Prejudice once but wasn’t too interested. Maybe when I get older I’ll like it more.

    • Song4myKing says:

      You’re probably right. There were lots of books that didn’t look remotely interesting when I was younger that I enjoy now. The same thing still happens to me sometimes – now more often because I might start a big book when I really don’t have time to sit and read. Several months later, when I have more time to get into it, I do enjoy it.

  4. Yulia says:

    I try reading different books and copying a few phrases from them. I used to always think that my work was just like Shannon Hale’s, but when I copied a paragraph or two I found that I don’t naturally write like she does.
    My biggest problem is placement of dialogue attributes. I used to always put it like this. “We have an emergency,” said General Weber. “One of our prisoners, Fraulein Erica Novakova, has vanished!” I’ve been working on putting the tags in different spots.
    Here’s a random scene from my work-in-progress:

    “We have an emergency,” said General Weber. “One of our prisoners, Fraulein Erica Novakova, has vanished!”
    “Vanished?” the hall rang out.
    “Yes. We believe Fraulein Novakova possesses an ability that no human could possess. Therefore we have made our conclusion.”
    He leaned over the lectern. “Fraulein Novakova is a phantom!”
    “A phantom?”
    The word bounced against the walls, filling the entire camp with that single haunting word. Phantom.

    Oh, and by the way, do you like my style? It’s a new scene from my Phantom of the Opera story (which, I might add, has a title, THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT). Currently has a little over 12,000 words!

  5. Elisa says:

    Well now, I’m reading Ella Enchanted again. I try not to read th really good books more than once a year. That way I don’t fall out of love with them. It’s a weird thing of mine. Rereading Ella Enchanted has really brought back some memories. Most of them good, lots of them funny. For instance:
    Reading the book makes me think of the movie adaption, which I watched for the second time in my life earlier this year. The first time I watched it I had been 4 or possibly 5. (The book is about 259,378 times better, but I shall not start a rant on movie adaptions or we will never hear the end of it…) I remember that when I was 5 I hated the prince Char. I don’t know why, exactly. I was a terribly opinionated child, when it came to movies and books, and I did not appreciate romance, no siree. That probably influenced me quite a bit. All the girls liked him, he liked Ella and therefore I hated him. Oh how I hated poor prince Charmont. I distinctly recall being acutely disappointed when Ella did not stab him (oh my stone-cold toddler heart!) and later that night I imagined alternative endings for the movie if Ella had actually done away with him.
    When I rewatched it I had a slightly more favorable opinion of the the prince, but…I’ve read the book by then, and that fellow was only a very shabby pretender. The REAL Char is infinitely better. Oh how my twelve-year-old self adored him. (He was not a fictional crush, I do not have fictional crushes, I always like the pairings too well to separate two characters from each other, even in imaginings. I get too attached to them being together and I cannot imagine one of them liking anyone else. I am like that. Ella and Char are perfect for each other and I love them together.)

    Anyhow, I think where I was going with this was: Mrs. Levine, you are a literary genius, thank you so much for Ella Enchanted.

    • Kitty says:

      lol, that was my laugh of the day. But yeah, the movie was quite… different. I don’t get why Hollywood likes to add some kind of government conspiracy to everything. They did that with the new Cinderella movie, too.

      • Elle says:

        I think part of it was that it provided a more immediate threat. In the book, Ella just imagines all the ways that people could use her curse against Char in much the way Edgar did, instead of having anyone (well, besides her step-family) actually take advantage of it. It’s great in print but in a fast paced movie, such introspection doesn’t pack the same punch. (And it’s harder to portray without a narrator or something)

        Really, the book and the movie are both so different, I enjoy them as two takes on the same concept.

        • Yulia says:

          I liked the movie, but I didn’t feel like Anne Hathaway looked like an Ella. Ella was supposed to have black hair; Anne’s is brown. I loved Anne in THE PRINCESS DIARIES, which is actually my favorite movie.

          • Jessica says:

            As a huge fan of figure skating, I always try to imagine figure skaters in the roles of the characters. Here are pictures of Adelina Sotnikova, a young lady who I think looks just like Ella. Don’t know how to post a link here, so just click on my name for the picture.
            I don’t own the rights to the photos; I got them off her official site.

          • Jessica says:

            Oh, and I should warn you, the photos are her on Dancing with the Stars, and in the first few her hot-hot-hot partner is shirtless in the samba routine :D. The photo where she looks most like Ella in my mind is the one where she’s sitting on the sofa in a brown-and-white dress. I think that’s one of the most beautiful pictures of her I could find.

  6. Bug says:

    Okay, so last week I wanted to write a reply to Maia’s question, but then I wasn’t able to access the computer for a while…so, sorry, is it alright if I add my two cents here? (To clarify, I’m talking about the question about hating the main character…)
    I’ve struggled with this before, and SOMETIMES it’s because of my lack of character development. I don’t really know anything about your character, but you said Daniel kind of just goes along with everything. So, maybe that could be one of the things that he has to try to change during the book. And you could also go back and have a look at what his life was like before the story starts…maybe Daniel lived with his grandfather, who was a very bossy and domineering old man, and any time Daniel expressed an opinion, his grandfather would squash it down. So, eventually, Daniel just started going with the flow–it was easier. (Like I said, I know nothing about him, I’m just making things up as an example.) A few other things I do is have a conversation with my character–sometimes I find out things about them that I didn’t know before–and try writing a few scenes that won’t make it in the book in the POV of a different character. So, maybe you could see what Daniel is like from Kai’s point of view. If Kai’s his best friend, Kai probably has things he likes about Daniel.

    And then, finally, what I do, but ONLY as a last resort, is sometimes, if I REALLY REALLY just can’t like this character–I rid of him, and put a new character in his place. Like, I make up a new name, different family, everything. Or I do that and keep the old character, but he sort of takes a backseat. Sometimes, even if I mean to keep the old one, he ends up just vanishing all by himself.

    Hope something in this helped! Sorry if it didn’t, or if I misunderstood the question!

    • Yulia says:

      I just realized that I’m the first deleted commenter on here since the blog got redone.
      Thanks for being so nice about my blunder here. Once I was part of a forum that deleted every post of interest and told me to either agree with them or leave. I’ll try to make sure that this won’t happen again.

  8. Gail Carson Levine says:

    Yulia, you seem to have a lot of worries along racial and religious lines, which do not really seem to me to be writing questions, and I think this isn’t the right forum for them.

  10. Kitty says:

    I have a quick grammar question: how often should you replace personal pronouns with names? For example, if you mention a character by name in paragraph one, when should you use their name again instead of he/she? (paragraph 3, paragraph 5, etc)Does it get boring if you keep using personal pronouns? (This is in the case of a 3rd person POV and only one character mentioned.)

    • Gail Carson Levine says:

      If there’s clarity about to whom the personal pronoun refers, I don’t think the character has to be named often. The pronoun doesn’t call attention to itself, which is good. Constant naming makes me think: Stop telling me it’s Charles! I get it!

    • Erica Eliza says:

      I’m reading over an old manuscript now and I’ve found a lot of sentences like “If Felix told anybody Tom was a traitor, he’d be dead.” Okay, who’s dead? Tom, since everyone knows he’s a traitor? Or Felix, because Tom’s not happy about it? I actually had to insert more names where there used to be pronouns.
      My rules are usually:
      1. Use the name if I’ve started too many sentences with he/she
      2. Whenever there’s a possibility of confusing the character with someone else

  11. Yulia says:

    In a scene with only 1 character, I might do this (this is taken from my latest work):
    After her meal, Erica headed to the drugstore and filched a hair-dyeing kit and a pair of scissors. In the bathroom of the inn, she chopped off her hair, then worked the dye into each lock.
    The inn had a hair dryer. After struggling for fifteen minutes about how to plug it in and turn it on, she found the right switch, and hot air blew her new hairstyle dry.
    Erica flicked the dryer off and gave her hair a shake. Then she turned to the mirror, ready to see her new self.
    Her hair was a shimmering blonde and chopped just below her chin. It gave the effect of a rounder, darker face. The red coat and dress made her look older, taller, bolder.
    She could still recognize the features within that face, and so could a sharp-eyed Nazi. She would need a better disguise than that to cover her identity.
    Her eye strayed to her pocket, where she’d stashed the red armband from Noah’s coat. It was wide enough to cover half her face, and long enough to fit from ear to ear. She glanced at the rope handles of the shopping bag and smirked. Now there’s a new kind of opera ensemble.
    Using the scissors, Erica made two tiny holes at each edge of the band. She cut two larger holes in the middle, then threaded the rope through the incisions.
    Five minutes of tinkering later, she tied the two strings behind her ears and lifted her head to face the mirror. The mask covered half her cheeks and nose, making her seem ghostly. In that mask, she was not Erica Novakova.
    So the masked maiden left the bathroom, on a mission to find a job.

    In a scene between 2 characters who are both chatting, I’d write it kind of like this:

    Adam strolled out. “Morning, Erica.”
    “Good morning, Adam.”
    “You’re looking nice today.”
    Erica ran a hand along the stained hem of her apron. “Oh, thanks.”
    He leaned against the rail and looked out at the choppy sea. “Not such a fine day to go fishing. Miriam left—her boat’s gone.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me. That girl’s always finding an excuse to leave this place.”

    If there’s 3 or more characters, it’d be tougher. Like this (I added another character named Delilah):

    Adam strolled out. “Morning, Erica. Morning, Delilah.”
    “Good morning, Adam,” said Delilah. Erica kept her eyes on the horizon.
    “You’re looking nice today. I mean, both of you are.” But he was looking at Erica. She didn’t even look up from the stormy view.
    Delilah ran a hand along the stained hem of her apron. “Oh, thanks.”
    Adam winced, unable to break the news to her that he wasn’t talking to her. He leaned against the rail and looked out at the choppy sea. “Not such a fine day to go fishing. Miriam left—her boat’s gone.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me,” said Delilah. “That girl’s always finding an excuse to leave this place.”

    Is that kind of helpful?

  12. Yulia says:

    I have a question. In MUSIC OF THE NIGHT (my still unpublished but coming-along-nicely story), my MC Erica’s parents are killed in chapter 3. I’m not sure how Erica should react to that.
    In the first 3 chapters, Erica and her parents are taken to the prison camp, but put in separate areas, so we don’t get to know them well. In chapter 3, Erica tries to escape, the soldiers catch her, and they decide to kill her. They throw her in a gas chamber, but before she dies, her parents decide to trade places with her. The soldiers let Erica out, throw her parents in, and dear old Ma and Pa die.
    The soldiers toss Erica in a cell and leave her alone. She cries for half an hour, and then it dawns on her that she has to get out of there—after all, her parents sacrificed themselves for her freedom. So she figures a way out and flees to Paris, and the rest of the story gets on.
    The problem is that I have to keep Erica pretty rational and calm. We can’t have her crying her eyes out for a week while the soldiers regroup. But I don’t know if keeping her calm makes her seem cold and heartless.
    There are a few flashbacks where Erica thinks about her parents and wishes they were there. Do you think that + 30 minutes of tears is enough moping?
    Also, sorry for the long, long, long posts. I’m a talker. If I had to cut off my arm or my tongue, I’d cut my arm.

    • Bug says:

      In the comments of the post “Ready, Set, Beginnings”, some people are talking about how to make their character deal with mourning families. Maybe you can read those and get some ideas?

    • Kitty says:

      In my opinion, definitely err on the side of rational and calm. People who turn into emotional wrecks whenever something bad happens to them get really annoying, really fast. Crying/ showing grief is fine and natural, but make sure that your MC doesn’t constantly do stupid/ irrational stuff. Coming from someone who’s just recently read a book with a protagonist that pretty much made one stupid decision after another and pretty much just didn’t think at all, I honestly wanted to slap her by the time I was halfway through the book. (sorry about the rant, it would have been a good book but I hated the MC) So I guess what I’m saying is that grief if fine, just make sure that your MC is able to put it aside for a while for the sake of survival, and that it doesn’t cloud her judgement.

  13. Chrissa Pedersen says:

    I’ve printed out the Peter Pan analysis, thanks! I remember reading THE ENGLISH PATIENT and being so excited to see how many more metaphors popped up in my writing 🙂 And when I was working on a rhyming book I realized I had started thinking in rhyme all the time. Your brain definitely picks up patterns even on a subconscious level.

  14. Kitty says:

    When should you put physical descriptions (appearance, etc) of the MC in a book? I feel like if you put it right at the beginning it would bore people, but if you put it later it seems kind of abrupt and awkward, like “you’re two chapters in the story and you describe your MC NOW?” Any suggestions?
    Also, how long should chapters be? Is there an industry standard range for this kind of stuff?
    Thanks!

    • Erica Eliza says:

      1. I usually do physical description the first time it wouldn’t feel forced. My favorite way is to have another character comment on the MC’s appearance. “You don’t look much like your sister”. “You’ll get a sunburn if you stay out here much longer”. People don’t think about themselves very often, but we do when someone else brings it up.
      2. I talked to an editor about this once and she said it’s more important for the chapters to be the same length as each other, not chapters in another book. Some authors do three page chapters, some go for twenty.

      • Gail Carson Levine says:

        Oddly enough, no editor has ever complained about or even commented on my chapter lengths, and I don’t think that means they’re perfect. It may just mean that my editors (seven so far) haven’t counted pages. Some of my books, EVER and my Princess Tales, have short chapters. In other books, I usually feel they’re too short if they’re under five pages and too long if they’re over thirteen. Most important to me is how I end a chapter–in a way that encourages the reader to turn the page. BUT as a reader myself, very long chapters discourage me.

    • Yulia says:

      Question 1:
      For the MC, I drop in the details slowly. Like this:
      Page 2: Erica brushed her long brown hair.
      Page 5: Erica tied the sash around her narrow waist.
      Page 7: Erica bumped her head on the doorframe. Why, she wondered, do they have to make everything for short people? Have they never met a tall person in their life?

      We surmise that she is tall and thin and has long brown hair.

      You can also do comparisons:
      Meg was much shorter than Erica but much rounder. Whereas Erica’s hair was long and brown, Meg’s was golden and chopped close to her face.

      We surmise that Meg is short, stout, and blonde, while Erica is tall, thin, and brunette.

      Question 2:
      I shoot for around 15,000 words (sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less). I use 12-point Times New Roman font and double-space, so I end up with a 4- to 6-page chapter. (Note: the page count will nearly double when it’s printed). So in the end I’ll have about an 8- to 12-page chapter.

    • Elisa says:

      I put a tiny bit of description in at first, mentioning only key details, such as hair color and perhaps skin tone, facial hair or distinctive scars. I will occasionally mention clothing if it shows rank or job or some other important thing (for instance, only girls ready to marry wear sleeveless gowns, and only men of great status dying heir beards, only messengers wear blue stripes and only ladies of high rank wear gems in their hair…etc). Weapons or flashy jewelry is fine. I would only mention eye color if the color is extremely striking, as people often fail to note eye color unless they know someone very well, or are attracted to them. I then drop in other things along the way after the key details are down. I’ll mention how long it takes for my MC to do her hair, because of how long it is. I’ll mention that another character is embarrassed about his lack of beard. I’ll mention that my MC’s sister commonly wears wide cotton trousers because she loves how comfortable they are. Another character has to clinch her belt to the last hole, and is unhappy because the end of the belt sticks out and catches on the strap of her bag.
      I don’t really like the MC staring into the mirror sequences, or “I combed my short golden hair,” phrases. If you’re going to do that, I would do it more like this, “I combed my short, golden hair and wished, for about the seven hundredth time it was longer and a less conspicuous color. I stood out like a dragon in a petting zoo among all the long, dark tresses of my schoolmates. One good thing about it’s short length, however, was that it fit neatly inside my bonnet without bulging, and for that I was thankful, for I rarely took it off, to avoid the stairs my hair inevitably attracted.”

      One of my favorite authors, Jane Austen, didn’t give us those sorts of details, she rarely mentioned hair color, or eye color, or the color of a person’s dress…and yet her writing is superb and you can get an idea of what a character looks like if you pay close attention.

      • Erica Eliza says:

        Yes! I’m not crazy for thinking Jane Austen never uses color. Early on in P&P, Bingley wears a blue coat and rides a black horse, the officers wear red, Darcy and Wickham’s faces turn red and white when they meet each other, but I can’t think of another instance where anything is colored. There’s a scene where Lydia mentions “pretty colored” fabric but doesn’t even tell what color it is. It’s funny, because fans of the movie adaptations talk about how pretty the sets and costumes are, but Austen barely describes them in the book.

      • Kitty says:

        Thanks Elisa! I hate the looking into mirror scenes too, but can’t seem to keep myself from writing them. I haven’t read any of Jane Austen’s works actually, but I will definitely check it out.

  15. Yulia says:

    Hi, I have a bunch of questions here:
    1. One book I’m writing is set 30 years into the future. In one scene a character is playing one of her mom’s old CDs. The other character glances at it and chuckles, thinking, “Wow, that music’s ancient! That’s from Taylor Swift’s first album. My mom was a kid back then!”
    But then that might confuse current readers who’s know that when a teenager’s mom was a kid, Taylor Swift wasn’t even born. So what do I do?
    2. In the same story, the girl puts the CD in her old boom box and the music’s playing. Is it all right copyright-wise to quote a line or two from the song? Like, say, the character walks in and “the room rang out with the catchy little tune. Marcia was sitting at the desk, drumming her fingers on the surface and singing, ‘Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Baby I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.’”?
    3. I have a Meg and a Mira in my story. Will that be confusing?
    4. One of my characters is very happy-go-lucky. Like, literally, her sister has been kidnapped and she’s a happy little lark. How do I make such a cheery little girl deal with big problems?

    Take your time answering; no rush here.

    • Melissa Mead says:

      1. You don’t have to name it. You could just say something like “Abby was listening to some old-fogey music from way back when Barb’s mom was a kid.”

      2. I wouldn’t. The music industry s very strict about these things. More so than the publishing industry is about quoting books, even.

      3. Maybe. If you’re concerned, you can change a name just to be sure.

      4. Is she just as happy when she’s alone?

      • Yulia says:

        Okay! Thanks, Ms. Mead!
        About #4, the girl is just a happy little kid, the peace-to-the-world type. She just doesn’t seem concerned easily. It kind of, I don’t know, decimates her character to make her grumpy. She’s such a cheery character.
        Do you think I should take some of her happy-go-luckiness out and make her more serious? Any advice is welcome!

        • Kitty says:

          How old is she? If she’s five, then happy-go-luckiness is pretty normal. If she’s sixteen, then maybe consider making her a bit more serious without losing the optimism, or have her have a really sheltered life. (think Cosette from Les Mis) As for dealing with problems, I suggest you go watch Frozen if you haven’t already, or basically any Disney movie. They have some great (although somewhat unrealistic) examples of super bubbly and optimistic people dealing with problems with peace and love and all that hippie stuff.

          • Yulia says:

            She’s 15. And she’s grown up in the opera industry, which is sort of sheltered. I’ve seen FROZEN; maybe I’ll make my MC a little more like Princess Anna.

    • Michelle says:

      1. Like Melissa said, you don’t have to name it. Or, if you want to, you can make it clear that it’s set in the future by dropping in the date 2045 somewhere. Maybe on the radio or something?
      2. And yeah, I also vote against quoting the song.
      3. I have the same problem in my WIP. Really, I think it shouldn’t be a problem, but I do feel more comfortable to have names that start with different letters, at least. However, if those names are the ONLY names that will work for your characters, then I would just leave it.
      4. Maybe you can make her seem slightly less cheery (not sad, though) when she FIRST hears about the bad news. After a few moments, she can bubble up more and say something positive about the situation. Then she’s fully cheery again. I think it adds a little more realism if the character at least shows that she cares about what’s going on, even she almost instantly becomes happy again.

  16. Kitty says:

    Piggybacking on the words per chapter question, approximately how many words are in a page of an average paper chapter book? (One for older kids like Ella Enchanted, not the short ones for first and second graders) I don’t think I have the attention span to count them individually 🙂
    thanks!

  17. Abigail says:

    Hey Mrs. Levine! Thanks for this- it’ll help me.

    One thing- I know you did a post on this already, but it’s not so much story hopping, but losing interest. I have a story called ‘The Luckbringer’ that currently has over 27,000 words. And I haven’t written in it since school ended (early June).

    Partially, it’s because I’m in a filler/standstill part in the story. What do you do when you’re at those? I hate them, and sometimes I manage to slog through them, but usually I end up with seven different subplots I started to get it moving. Uggggh.

    Also, I guess I don’t know where the story is going RIGHT NOW. I know where it’s supposed to end, and what I need to do to get there, but I’m not really sure what to write. Do you write a huge, detailed outline explaining what happens in every chapter? I have a few friends who do that, and personally I think it’s a waste of time and a restriction on your creativity, but I guess it’d also help you out during those filler chapters. What’s your thoughts on that?

    And one more thing: When I want to sit down and write (or at least, feel like I should), sometimes I stare at my computer screen for fifteen minutes without writing anything, then go do something else. I’ve tried ‘tickling the keys’ and writing in a notebook, but it doesn’t help much.

    That’s a lot of questions that are loosely related. If you can answer these, it’d be so helpful! Thanks!

    ~Abigail

    • Yulia says:

      I’m not an expert, but here’s my two cents:
      I have what I call “Chapter 7 syndrome.” I write 6 chapters, and then I lose interest. So what I do is try to write the ending first. Then you fill in the middle.
      Often I use a love story as a subplot. Think of it like this: In ELLA ENCHANTED, Ella overcoming the curse is the main plot, and her relationship with Char is the subplot.
      I used to get “blank-page fright”. Outlining helps; for example, if I know that in scene 7 Erica is supposed to disguise herself and gets hired at the opera house, I can point her in that direction.
      Hope something in there helps!

  18. Annalise says:

    Hi! I’m Annalise (12 years old) and I was wondering about slang. Sometimes when I’m writing I feel like adding ‘See ya,’ instead of ‘See you,’ but I feel like I’m adding a typo to my story. Any suggestions about when to slang and when not slang?
    Sincerely,
    Annalise
    ps I love Writer to Writer and Writing Magic-they’re so helpful and funny! Ella from Ella Enchanted is one of my favourite literary characters. THANK YOU FOR CREATING ALL THE WONDERFUL BOOKS!!! 🙂

  19. Annalise says:

    pps-is there a rule about multiple exclamation points? Sometimes I feel my characters could really use a couple more !’s to add to their excitement. I get worried that more then one ! looks amateur. Sorry about the second comment.

    • Yulia says:

      Sometimes, I do this:
      Say this is your original scene:
      “I can’t believe this is happening!!!” Britney screamed.

      You can try this instead:
      Britney jumped up and down, squealing like a zipper being unzipped too fast. “I can’t believe this is happening!”

  20. Yulia says:

    Hi, what do you do when you’re trying to write in the car and it makes your handwriting sloppy? I can barely write in the car.
    (May have something to do with my dad’s awful driving).

    • Kitty says:

      I just type on my computer, usually. My handwriting is naturally sloppy even when I’m not in a car… But yeah, try google docs. They have a nice offline feature that lets you work without internet. They say that reading in a car is bad for your eyes, though, so maybe write in short intervals and take breaks frequently.

  21. Yulia says:

    I have a question. Everyone says “don’t use adverbs in your dialogue tags!” They also say, “said is the best word for a dialogue tag.”
    So which is worse, to say, “she said quietly” or “she whispered”? Just curious!

    • Bug says:

      I think said is better, unless you are trying to indicate volume…in which case, totally use whisper. (Or shouting, etc…)

    • Song4myKing says:

      Whatever says what you mean most clearly and most simply. If she whispered, say whispered. If she used her voice but used it quietly, say “said quietly.” My rule of thumb is use another verb only if it gives the volume or tone of voice in one word. Basically, if it adds something (e.g. “muttered” means essentially the same as “said quietly” but it adds tone). Words like “responded” add nothing but frills. We already know this is a response. Words like “exclaimed” or “questioned” are redundant; they repeat what a punctuation mark already told us. The same idea goes for adverbs. Modify “said” if – and only if – it is the best way to be clear.

  23. Yulia says:

    Hi Gail/bloggers,
    I’m trying to write a story about a young athlete who gets wound up in a scandal over judging at the Olympics, ending with her getting a gold medal and the girl who did better getting a silver. A huge controversy erupts like a volcano. The problem’s that there’s no way the story could end well. So that makes it a tragedy. But will people want to read a story about a girl who gets tons of hatred, tries to escape it, and dies or goes crazy anyway?
    I know there are many tragedies written (Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Catcher in the Rye, Madame Butterfly, etc.), but they never drew me (though I always liked the first part of Madame Butterfly). I’m afraid that the ending might turn other people off; or they’ll be enjoying it until the end when she goes crashing into the ocean and drowns. Any tips?

    • Kitty says:

      What about The Fault in Our Stars? That *SPOILER ALERT* doesn’t end on a super happy note, but the author handles it well and everybody loves the book. I think the key is balancing the tragedy with some bit of happiness, even if the overall story is tragic. But if you have a tragic ending, make sure to ease into it, and not just abruptly kill off the girl in like one paragraph. Another thing to consider: you say that there’s no way the story could end well, but could you possibly make it end without her dying? Like maybe make her realize her mistake, and apologize and go on with her life like the ending of Mean Girls. Just a thought.

    • Bug says:

      I think tragedies need to have SOMETHING good accomplished in them. Romeo and Juliet died, but they stopped the feud. In “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” (Spoilers), Timothy…um, disappears, but he gives his parents just a little while to have a kid, and they’ve learned a lot after that. Sad things do happen, but “It’s an ill wind that blows no good”. Let something become better despite of, or maybe because of, the tragedy.

      • Yulia says:

        Thanks! That was really helpful!
        I was thinking about telling the story from the girl’s friend’s perspective, and the girl’s friend gains insight into the fact that not everything in this world is perfect.
        Of course, I’m horrible at writing tragedies. Every time I go to kill the MC, I chicken out. But sometimes what has to be done must be done. *rolling up my sleeves to kill off poor little Maggie*

  24. Yulia says:

    The problem is that she has 2 million haters harassing and threatening her, and they’re not going to calm down just because she says, “I’m so sorry, I don’t deserve this medal.” I’m basing this off a real-life story, and in that case it’s been over a year since the scandal began and the athlete in question is still getting plenty of backlash.
    Also, my friend loves THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (though she was heartbroken when Augustus died. I think she wanted to marry him).

  25. Annalise says:

    Tragedies are very important-if all stories had happily ever afters wouldn’t we start to develop bovarism? An unreal perception of the world? Sometimes we need to realize that life isn’t perfect and we should be grateful for our little infinities. sniff sniff 🙁

  26. Gail Carson Levine says:

    This is from Yulia:

    Lisa, may I suggest the name Finn for the prince? It’s my favorite men’s name.
    Great luck with your project!
    Yulia, fellow writer

    Yulia, Why didn’t you post this right here?

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