“It’s our style,” she said brusquely.
He frowned. “Is it really, though?”
She laughed scornfully. “Who else’s would it be?”
“And you haven’t heard these phrases before?” He raised an eyebrow.
She bit her lip. “Are we badly written?” she said worriedly.
He shrugged. “I think we’re just first draft.”
Brusquely, scornfully, worriedly; frowning, laughing, shrugging, and eyebrows: that's what first draft is all about. And so it should be! But if we leave it like that, that's not really our style. To launch the online HONE YOUR STYLE workshop, I've got a brace of free Writing Skills for you, to whet your appetite and get you exploring your own sense of style. And here's the second: A Said –ly Hunt, a lovely skill to dramatically improve any dialogue scene.
In first draft, while you're hearing the back and forth of the conversation, and every nuance of every line, all the ___ly words come out to play: said sceptically, said ruefully, said wryly, said drily, said anxiously, said teasingly, said sternly, said brusquely, and so on. That's fine! We're in the thrall of invention; we want to capture everything and get it down on the page. But we don't want to leave it like that.
So in the next draft, we go on a ___ly hunt. (I redraft one scene at a time, before moving on to the next scene, while it's all still fresh and alive in my mind.) And we change all those ___ly words to actions. She said sceptically: She raised her eyebrows. He said sternly: He frowned. She said worriedly: She bit her lip. He said casually: He shrugged.
Better, definitely better, but not the gold standard. Those are still some pretty familiar phrases. And rapidly the scene is a slew of sighing, shrugging, grimacing, head shaking, and a metric ton of eyebrow action. (So many eyebrows.)
A few of those are fine, for transparent prose, but for the most part we want to take it a step further. What would that specific character, in that time and place, do to show that emotion? Here are a few of my recent edits.
Shakily, she stood up and began packing her writing box with ink, pen, and paper.
“You don’t need that, you’re taking the afternoon off!”
“Please,” she said tensely. “I have to have it – I can’t…”
becomes
Shakily, she stood up and began packing her writing box with ink, pen, and paper.
“You don’t need that, you’re taking the afternoon off!”
“Please.” Her hand gripped its side, her knuckles pale. “I have to have it – I can’t…”
In another scene, two lovers have been reunited after a time apart and are sprawled on the mattress catching up.
“I see. Would this be anything to do with a boatful of treasure belonging to you turning up in front of Culpeper’s at dawn?” she said wryly.
He smiled ruefully. “I can’t say.”
"said wryly" I just deleted: her words are wry enough on their own. "ruefully": I struggled with that. I had to go back to the underlying meaning: what does it mean for him to smile ruefully? He wants to tell her and can't. He's trying to soften his refusal. Okay…
“I see. Would this be anything to do with a boatful of treasure belonging to you turning up in front of Culpeper’s at dawn?”
He hooked his leg over hers, his calf rasping gently against her thigh. “I can’t say.”
These actions are now exactly specific to that character, in that scene, in that location: we're a long way from all-purpose shrugging and eyebrow-raising. And we've moved from some pretty pedestrian first-draft to passable transparent prose to a smooth scene brimming with natural action and bonus characterisation. That's what we're after! What's more, once the character actions are carrying the tone, I can lose some of the other __ly words or all-purpose actions by just crossing them out.
So, that's what we're going to do. If you have a first-draft scene with plenty of dialogue and __ly words / shrugging etc, you can just leap straight into that. Alternately, we can create some first-draft material to play with. Because those character actions are so specific to them, there, then, we need to gather a few things first: two characters, who're chatting; somewhere with stuff for them to do; and something suitably fraught for them to discuss, to bring out all those lovely emotions. So here we go:
- Your two characters: grab two from this handy ran-gen
- Somewhere with stuff for them to do: They're cleaning / clearing out an old workshop. This one, if you like.
- Something suitably fraught to discuss: Their mutual friend has been causing trouble and generally doing wrong. They both like this person, are frustrated with them, and they're at odds for how to approach the situation / what to do about it.
To make this a ten-minuter, spend five minutes writing the scene, completely freely, making sure to include plenty of dialogue and all those ___ly words we use to capture our sense of the tone. Then for the next five minutes, go on a said __ly hunt: what very character-specific and scene-specific actions can you replace those with?
Why this skill?
Honing your style is part discovering our complete and giddying freedom, to write exactly as we please, and part eyeing up and finessing our prose, line by line. That's why we don't want to put the brakes on in first draft: when we let loose, more of our original and unusual phrasing can leap out, because we aren't censoring it. Alongside that, though, comes a rash of familiar copy-paste phrases: phrases we grab ready-made off the language shelf, clichés we dash down as shorthand markers, to hastily capture in words everything we're imagining. Those worn-out workmanlike phrases are like battered scaffolding: they're not pretty; we don't want them to stay there; but we damn well need them while we're still building the thing!
So we write our first drafts with complete freedom, and then we go back and finesse. For everything that's overly familiar, we think: is this what I want, in my style, in this scene? Sometimes, we do: sometimes people shrug. Often, we really did just grab the first phrase to hand and by pushing it further, we can find something far more original, vivid, specific – and unique to our own style.
The HONE YOUR STYLE workshop is two half-days this winter, live, online, and open to bookings from anywhere in the world. Through games, discussion, and quick-fire writing, you'll explore what makes quality prose of every flavour and hone your own style. All in fabulous company with a lovely bunch of creative people. Click here for details and to vote for which weekend it runs.
