Proofing Checklist: Just Nod & Smile

I recently finished the latest revision of my novel, and after all the heavy lifting was done–you know, adding new scenes, tweaking character motivations, all that–it was time for one more proof before it goes back to my agent. Now I have a pretty lengthy proofing checklist that includes all kinds of things, from overused words, sentence structure bugaboos, adverb annihilation, dialog tag correctification, the works. What I want to focus on today, though, is body language and nonverbal cues, and more importantly the ones I tend to overuse.

As usual for these things, what follows is how I write, revise, etc. I’m trying for a specific style with my work that won’t be a good fit for everyone. So with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s nod, smile, shake our heads, and grimace this thing to death. 🙂

As I alluded to above, the prime suspects for overused body language in my work are nod, smile, and shaking heads. The first two, especially, can get pretty egregious, and I end up removing half or more of them in a given manuscript. I also tend to overuse frown, grimace, and, oddly, shudder to a lesser degree, plus a few others.

So how and why do I fix my nods and smiles and so on? Well, here are some examples.

1) It doesn’t make sense. Sometimes I’m just writing along, making everybody nod and smile, and for some reason I pop one into sentence where it doesn’t make sense. Case in point:

When are you going after them?” Everett asked.

She nodded. “Soon, and you’re coming with us.”

So, uh, why is she nodding there? No good reason. This one just gets nuked, and the sentence and dialog are fine without it.

2) It’s redundant with the dialog. This is kind of a stylistic choice, but I prefer to let the dialog do the heavy lifting when it comes to character emotions, intent, and so on. Often as not, the body language is just redundant. Example:

Everett nodded. “Yeah, that night.” He took a risk and lied. “I spoke with Howard on the inside. He saw the same thing.”

I don’t really need the nodded here because he gives the affirmative in the dialog and I don’t think it adds anything. I might rewrite this one as:

“Yeah, that night.” Everett took a risk and lied. “I spoke with Howard on the inside. He saw the same thing.”

Now there are times where the body language, a nod in this case, does add something to the dialog. Case in point:

He didn’t sit, but he put his hands on the back of the chair and nodded. “Go on.”

I could remove the nod here, but I actually like the three little bits of nonverbal communication here followed by the dialog. Your mileage may vary, but this is one I’d keep.

3) There’s a better word. Sometimes I’ll default to one of my go-to bits of body language even when there’s a better choice. Now, this differs from point number one in that I actually want some kind of nonverbal cue in the sentence. Just, you know, a different one. Example:

He grimaced. “They could have brought you at night to spare you that.” He remembered his own troubles with the sun.

Now a grimace is usually used to denote disgust or pain, but that’s not what the character is feeling here. It’s frustration or even anger, so something different is needed. Maybe it’s:

“Goddamn it,” Everett said through clenched teeth. “They could have brought you at night to spare you that.”

In this case I think that extra bit of dialog and the nonverbal cue sells the emotion I want better than just a facial expression. I also think it works better without the last sentence.

So how many of the offending words did a remove from my 103,000-word manuscript? Here’s the score.

Word Start End
nod/nodded/nodding 108 47
Smile/smiled/smiling 89 47
shake/shook head 88 38
shudder/shuddered/shuddering 23 11
frown/frowned/frowning 15 14
grimace/grimaced/grimacing 13 9

Not bad. As you can see, I removed half or more of the prime offenders while I was more lenient with the others. It should be noted that not all those nods, smiles, and shaking of heads were simply deleted. Like the examples I included, sometimes they were replaced with a more appropriate word or action.

Well, that’s a glimpse into my proofing process, and, again, this is just how I do it. You may use more nods and smiles than me, and that’s cool. Hell, I recently looked at a best-selling novel around the same length as my book, and it had 276 instances of nod/nodded/nodding. That clearly didn’t keep it from getting published or selling in great numbers.

What types of body language and nonverbal cues do you tend to overuse? Tell me about it in the comments.

A Week of Writing: 8/12/19 to 8/18/19

Here we go. Another week of writing gone by, and here’s how I did.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from Stephen King

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”

— Stephen King

Yeah, that’s, uh, a little grim, but the message is a good one. Kill, kill, kill your darlings. It’s a difficult process, but one that must be done, as Mr. King says. This last week as I wrapped up what will be the penultimate revisions of my novel, I removed a lot of subplots and extraneous characters, so that the focus would be on the central events and how they move the story along. It was difficult because I liked a couple of those subplots and a few of those secondary characters, but when I took a good long look at them I realized they were largely just in the way of the story I was trying to tell. So, out they went. If I’m so lucky as to sell this novel and get to write it’s sequel, then maybe some of the characters and subplots will return. We’ll see.

The Novel

As I said above, I wrapped up the second to the last revision last week. Now, what I need to do is fairly simple. I need to clarify a few scenes with some additional information, add one new chapter at the end to tie everything up, and then just give the whole thing one last proofreading. I aim to finish that in the next ten days and hand it back to my agent. Then I’m going on vacation and I will do my best not to think about the damn book for seven days (I will almost certainly fail).

Short Stories

Slow progress, but, you know, progress.

  • Submissions Sent: 3
  • Rejections: 0
  • Acceptances: 0
  • Publications: 0
  • Shortlist: 0

Three submissions is okay, but I need to get out a few more if I want to get back on pace for my goal of one-hundred. I’m at 55 for the year, and I’d like to end August with 60. That would still be off the pace, but with a good September I can catch up. Getting the novel off my plate should free me up to finish a number of short stories in various stages of completion. More new stories always means more submissions,.

The Blog

Two blog posts last week.

8/12/19: Get Your Hooks In: Even More Fun With First Lines

In this post I take another look at the first lines in some of my published works.

8/16/19: 2019 Acceptance Rate Check-In

Checking in on my acceptance rate for the year.

Goals

I’d like to be finished with the novel by the end of the week and have it back to my agent. It might take me an extra day or so, but my goal is to not begin September with an unfinished novel on my desktop.

That was my week. How was yours?

2019 Acceptance Rate Check-In

With 2019 three quarters of the way through, let’s see how I’m doing with regards to submissions and rate of acceptance. In this post I’m gonna run the numbers for the year to date and compare it with the numbers for all the years I’ve tracked my submissions through Duotrope. Before I get to the numbers, let me first tell you about my methodology. The acceptance rate is calculated with the following formula: total acceptances/(total submissions – pending subs and withdrawals). Obviously, the pending subs only applies to the current year. Additionally, these numbers only count short stories I’ve sent to various genre markets and contests. It does not count any of my contract work for Privateer Press or when I’m invited to submit a story to a market or basically anything that more or less guarantees publication.

Note, 2019 looks a little weird, mostly because of how Dutrope tracks certain things (and because a few of my submission went to publishers not in their database). In other words, the 2019 numbers are very close, but not perfect (though we’re talking fractions of a percentage when it comes to acceptance rates). When I do my end-of-year calculations, I’ll sit down and figure out where the discrepancies are and publish a final, correct 2019 accounting.

Okay, with all that out of the way, here’s eight years of submissions:

Year Subs Reject L/N/W Accept Acc %
2012 6 5 1 0 0%
2013 16 14 2 0 0%
2014 38 29 4 5 15%
2015 46 37 2 7 16%
2016 53 43 2 8 16%
2017 73 64 4 5 7%
2018 120 100 4 19 16%
2019* 55 42 0 11 22%
Total 407 334 19 55 14%

*year to date

I always aim for a 10% acceptance rate. If I get above that, awesome. If I dip below it, as I did in 2017, then I am a sad writer. Luckily, it looks like 2017 was more anomaly than trend and things got back on track in 2018 and look pretty solid for 2019. Full disclosure here. Three of the acceptances for 2019 were part of a #vss365 Twitter anthology, and they were not submitted in the usual sense. They were chosen from microfiction I’d posted on Twitter during the “submission window.” If you remove those three acceptances, then my acceptance percentage for 2019 is 16% (which seems to be about my average).

That 15 to 20 percent mark seems to be where I live for the most part, and I’m okay with that. Of course, I’d like to crack more professional markets, as more than half of my publications in the last three years or so have been at least semi-pro (though a bit more token this year). Not that I’m complaining, mind you, just that I’d love to see my name in certain publications. I’m sure most of you can guess which ones. 😉

In short, 2019 is going okay. I’d like to have submitted more, and though I’m still hoping to hit 100 submissions, at this rate I’ll be closer to 80. That’s not terrible, of course, and if I can keep up the submission rate, maybe I’ll get close to 2018’s acceptance numbers.

How’s your 2019 submissions going so far? Tell me about it in the comments.

Get Your Hooks In: Even More Fun With First Lines

For a while now I’ve been revisiting my published stories specifically to look at the first line and determine if it’s the kind of line that immediately hooks the reader. Once again, this is because of an essay by Stephen King called “Great Hookers I Have Known” from his collection Secret Windows. It’s a great little piece where King looks at the first lines from his novels to see if they qualify as “hookers.” That’s apparently old publisher slang for a first lines that grab a reader’s attention.

So let’s look at some of my recently published stories and see if I’m getting better, worse, or just treading water with my first lines. I’ll give you a link to the story if it’s free to read online, then the first line, and an excuse, er, I mean an explanation of why it’s a good or not so good.

1. “The Thing That Came With the Storm” published by The Molotov Cocktail

I’ve burned all the furniture and every scrap of paper in the house.

Pretty good. Like a lot of interesting first lines, I think it gets the reader asking questions. In this case, that question is why is he doing that? That’s the kind of thing that usually keeps a reader reading. Grade: B+

2. “Big Problems” published by Jersey Devil Press

Gorrus crawled on his hands and knees, squeezing through the narrow halls of his house.

Meh. This is one that gets a whole lot better when paired with the second sentence. His bedroom was the only room that could accommodate a giant’s frame because he’d knocked down the walls of the adjoining rooms. There’s an argument to be made, of course, that you should focus on the first paragraph as a hook, and this is one that probably supports that argument. Grade: C+ (B with second line)

3. “Paint Eater” published by The Arcanist

Ajay tossed the empty can of black Krylon on the ground and stepped back.

Yeah, bleh. I have a good paragraph to open this story, but this first sentence is kinda boring. The black Krylon is, I guess, mildly interesting just because you don’t read those words together very often and it tells you something about the story. Still, not awesome.  Grade: C-

4. “Far Shores and Ancient Graves” published by New Myths

Dr. Livingstone, I presume.” Grace smiled, hoping the stuffy looking British archaeologist had a sense of humor.

Not terrible (a little cliche maybe). This one gives you a little character note from the get-go, but it’s not exactly knock-your-socks-off. British archaeologist gives a hint at what the story might be about, but I’d say this one is just okay. Grade: B-

5. “Old as the Trees” published by Ellipsis Zine

Simon stood next to an ocean of waist-high weeds, their thin yellow stalks so densely packed you’d have to walk on top of them rather than through them.

I like this one. There’s some good imagery here, but it doesn’t tell you a whole lot. This is a horror story, and if I’d been able to inject something ominous into this first line it would really sing. As it is, it’s not bad, but not great. Grade: B

6. “Time Waits for One Man” published by Factor Four Magazine

Okay, so you’re immortal?” Nadine set her iPhone on the table and pressed record.

Here we go. This is a good one. I love starting a story with dialog when I can, and I think it works here. The question “Okay, so you’re immortal?” is pretty interesting, I think, and I believe most folks would want to keep reading (the whole point of a good first line). Grade: A

7. “Beyond the Block” published by Tales from the Magician’s Skull

My cell is not far from the executioner’s square, and the headsman is already at work.

Another solid first line. This one tells you a lot in a short space. You immediately know the narrator is in some kind of trouble and there’s the threat he’ll get his head chopped off. That’s pretty good. It’s not the best of the bunch, but well above average. Grade: A-

As usual, these grades are super subjective, and your mileage may vary. A lot. Ultimately, all these stories were published, and the question, as always, is did the first line help or hurt the story’s chances? This is not scientific or anything, but I will say the stories in this batch with better first lines were rejected fewer times or even sold on their first attempt. There are, of course, other factors at play. I’ve sold to a number of these markets more than once or even a lot, so the editor might give me the benefit of the doubt and read past a boring first line (bless them). Or, it’s entirely possible that some editors don’t really care about the first line and read every story start to finish and judge it in its entirety (also, bless them). Who knows? But it remains a fun little exercise. 🙂

Thoughts on first lines? Tell me about it in the comments and/or share some of yours.

A Week of Writing: 7/29/19 to 8/4/19

Another week, another bunch of words in roughly the shape of novels and stories and stuff.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from Salvador Dali.

“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”

― Salvador Dali

It’s been said that perfection is the enemy of done (or something like that), and in my experience that is very true. I find you have to give up the pursuit of perfection at some point, and you must be able to step back and say, “good enough,” and get that story submitted or put that novel in the hands of your agent. Right now I’m steaming toward done on my novel, and though I will put it back in the hands of my agent before the end of the month, I have no illusions it will be perfect. I’ll be happy with finished, and I believe (and hope a little) that it’s good.

The Novel

As I mentioned above, I’m getting close. I started what will be the last revision pass on the book. I’ve made changes and added all the new material based on notes form first readers and my agent, and now it’s just a matter of cleaning it up and making a few more small changes. It’s time. I’ve done the work. I’ve slaved over the thing for what feels like too long, and I need to get it out in the world and find out if it’s good enough. My general feeling after reading it for what has to be the 100th time is that it is a good book. Good enough? We’ll see.

Short Stories

Not fantastic, but this is an improvement over the last couple of weeks.

  • Submissions Sent: 2
  • Rejections: 1
  • Acceptances: 0
  • Publications: 0
  • Shortlist: 0

Two submissions is a start, but I need a good 8 to 10 more by month’s end to catch up. I’ll submit one or two flash pieces this week to The Molotov Cocktail’s WildFlash contest and then at least one to The Arcanist’s monster contest. The rejection is from a pro market I’ve been trying to crack for years. This marks my 15th rejection from the market, and maybe I should I give up, but I’ve cracked markets after a dozen rejections, so why not fifteen? 🙂

The Blog

Just the one blog post last week. I promised I’ll have some a bit meatier than a writing update this week.

7/31/19: A Week of Writing: 7/22/19 to 7/28/19

The usual weekly writing update.

Goals

I’ve been making good progress on this last revision on the novel, and my primary goal is just to keep pushing on that. Short story submissions will also happen.

Publications

I’m a little late with this, but I did have another story published with The Molotov Cocktail. The story is called “The Thing That Came With the Storm.” You can read it for free by clicking the link below. (God, I love Molotov’s issue covers.)

“The Thing That Came With the Storm”

That was my week. How was yours?

A Week of Writing: 7/22/19 to 7/28/19

Yeesh, have I fallen behind on these things. Okay, here we go.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from Truman Capote.

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

― Truman Capote

You ever seen someone smother their french fries in ketchup to the point where you can’t even see the fries? Or maybe someone dumps so much cream in their coffee you say something stupid like, “Hey, you want some coffee with that cream?” Anyway, that’s how I’ve been feeling about my writing lately. I swear I’m not posting this to elicit sympathy. Nope, it all about the importance and hard truth in Truman Capote’s quote. Essentially, if you are going to pursue writing, you are going to fail or at least feel like your failing a lot, and I think Mr. Capote’s right. Every time I’ve had some success at this gig it’s been more meaningful because I know how hard I’ve worked for it, and how much harder I’ll work still.

So, even when you’re feeling like you’re failing miserably, and the rejections are piling up, and the revision just keeps going and going and going, remember how fucking great those fries taste with a little ketchup.

The Novel

Still working on the novel, still revising, but getting closer. Progress on the novel for the last couple of week was slowed by a vacation and then a story I needed to write for another project. I’m back on on it this week and what I hope is the final two weeks before a completed revision and the novel is back in my agents hands. (My lips to gods ears and all that.)

Short Stories

Uh, not great.

  • Submissions Sent: 0
  • Rejections: 1
  • Acceptances: 1
  • Publications: 1
  • Shortlist: 0

I have fallen of the wagon with submission in a serious way. The one bright spot here is an acceptance and a publication. There’s a submission window closing today for a market I do not want to miss, so I can guarantee at least one submission this week. Of course, I’m also off my pace for 100 submissions for the year, but I still have time to make that up.

The Blog

Fell down a little here too. Sensing a theme yet? 🙂

7/17/19: The Post-Acceptance Process

In this post I discuss what I do after an acceptance (a much less-used set of procedures).

Goals

The main goal is to get a story or two out to a market a very much like whose submission window close TODAY. Beyond that, it’s working on the novel (like a broken record).

Curious Fictions

I’ve published a couple more flash pieces over at Curious Fictions. They’re free to read, so head on out, give ’em a look, and throw me a like or two if you’re so inclined.

The first story is called “A Man of Many Hats,” and it’s one of the weirder things I’ve written. It was originally published by The Molotov Cocktail. The second story is an old, unpublished work called “A Friend for Abby.” .

“A Man of Many Hats”

Photo by James Bak on Unsplash

“A Friend for Abby”

Photo by SvedOliver on Shutterstock

That was my week. How was yours?

The Post-Acceptance Process

In a recent post, I discussed my process after receiving a rejection. Well, there’s a flip side to that, and I have a post-acceptance process too. It’s just as important as the post-rejection ritual, maybe even more so. Here’s what I do (or try to do) after what I like to call “the blessed event.” 🙂

  1. Enjoy it. This is a do as I say and not as I do kind of thing because, well, I suck at enjoying my successes. Here’s what you should do, though. Take a moment, revel in that acceptance, bask in the warm glow of validation, and tell yourself, “See, I am good enough.” It’s good for your confidence, it’s good for your soul, and it strengthens your resolve and determination for the rejections that are always right around the corner.
  2. Report. Okay, now that you’ve enjoyed the moment and read all the nice things the editor said about your story at least five times, it’s time to get back to work. Like a rejection, the first thing I do is go out to Duotrope and report the result of the submission. Unlike a rejection, however, this feels fucking fantastic. For me, it’s the best part. I get to select the acceptance option when I update the submission and then watch as my acceptance rate increases. It’s a wonderful burst of validation, and for some reason, it makes the acceptance feel more official, more real. All of that aside, it’s important to record the outcomes of all your submissions, whether they be rejections, acceptances, or anything in between. That data can be invaluable later.
  3. Respond. Now, unlike a rejection to which you NEVER respond, you need to respond to the acceptance quickly. Maybe not right that second, but within twenty-four hours at the very least. You need to let the editor know you’ve received their email and that the story is still available for publication. I guess you don’t have to say thank you, but I think you should. It’s the polite and professional thing to do in my opinion. In addition, many acceptance letters will ask you for additional information, like a bio, or include a contract. You need to address those things right away and get them back to the editor so they can get on with actually publishing your story.
  4. Celebrate. This is another thing I’m not particularly good at, but I think you should celebrate your successes. That could be as simple as heading out to Twitter and announcing the acceptance (unless the publisher has asked you to keep it under wraps for the moment). Or maybe you pour yourself a glass of wine (or your libation of choice) and drink to the win, because that’s what it is, a victory.

And that’s the post-acceptance process I try to follow. What do you do? Tell me about it in the comments.