Lesson 9

Writing style, Lesson 9
 Good day to all. My week ran like clock-work. I hope yours did too. Now that I had you tear your book apart, and you are only halfway through, I want to talk about style. Being a beginner in the author biz, many write in first person and passive, telling a story. This is easy, but it goes nowhere.

Writing Class by Rick Kurtis
  You want to give (you/I) your character, a name, and you want to distance yourself and your reader. (I looked around toward the east. You see the sun peeking out from the horizon.) (Rick looked around toward the east. The sun peeked out from the horizon with a brilliant glow.)
Action. This is said on all movie sets, and it should be followed throughout your entire book. I don’t know how to explain this and maybe someone can comment to give me more insight, but I will try my best. (Rick is sitting on the floor.) Yes, a lot of agents, editors, and even my professor have said, “You are telling a story that has already happened. It is in the past. Write it in the past, not present tense.” (Rick was sitting on the floor.) Now Action, (Rick sat on the floor.) (He began to walk away. He was angry. / He walked away with a very angry look.) (Off in the distance, Rick could hear a thud. / Off in the distance, Rick heard a thud.)
I really don’t know how much this matters, because everyone who has read my books have whizzed through, saying that they couldn’t put it down and they have asked for more. So I must be doing something right. Maybe my books are so darn good, they don’t even know that they are not well written. Just something to keep in mind on what “They” say.
Oh, that reminds me. THEY don’t like it when you want to express your sentence or writing by using all caps. BAM! For children’s books, all things are possible to excite their little minds, but for adults, they want the wording to be well written enough that it shoots out on its own. I have even dropped exclamation points, because I heard, we writers use way too many, where they are not necessary. To my surprise, my publisher, highly educated, a trained editor, put them back in. What? Enough.
I read the book ‘Princess Bride,’ which gave me a good feel about my writing. He had runaway sentences and narrated his thoughts in italic throughout the book. I loved the movie, but the book, as far as the story, made a big difference.
So, do you now have to start over? I’m just the messenger, passing along what I have gone through. I don’t listen to all the advice I read or hear on YouTube videos. I don’t even do all the corrections that my editors have suggested. Some of their suggestions change the dynamic of the story, or doesn’t fit the character. I know my characters, they don’t, because they only edit. They don’t read the content. I did have one editor praise me on a line I wrote. That was nice.
So I say, take it or leave it, and enjoy your week. I’ll be writing more to pass along in our next lesson on editing and editors. Until then,
 
Happy Writing from rickkurtisbooks.com