We all have bad habits. One trick for dealing
with our bad writing habits is to search for each
and highlight it before doing a semi-final readthrough
of your manuscript. You won’t want to eliminate
every occurrence, but do consider whether that
word/phrase is the most effective way of saying
what you want to say. This process will make you
more aware of your bad habits, and your first
drafts will gradually become cleaner.
Using MS Word to search and highlight:
Use the “Highlight” icon to
set the desired color. Then use the “Replace”
function and click the “More”
button. In the “Find what” box,
type the word or phrase, then type it again
in the “Replace with” box. With
your cursor in the “Replace with”
box, go to “Format” and “Highlight”.
Now do a “Replace All”. (Later,
when you’ve reviewed your manuscript,
you can remove highlighting by selecting
the whole document and clicking the “Highlight”
icon to “None.”)
If you’re more skilled with Word,
you can program a macro to search and highlight
all the words/phrases at once.
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Here’s one of the biggies from my highlight
hit list:
Said: As in “he said”
or “Mary turned and said.” These are
called dialog tags. Do you need them?
Not every line of dialog needs a dialog tag.
If only two people are talking, you can skip some
of the tags (you’ll need more tags if there
are more speakers). Give each speaker a separate
paragraph. Occasionally, a speaker might refer
to the other by name – but avoid doing this
too much (in normal conversation, most people
don’t use names frequently). Or use an action
tag instead of a dialog tag, to show what the
characters are doing and add to setting, mood,
emotion (in most cases, you don’t need both
an action tag and a dialog tag).
For example, the following is from a scene with
only the heroine and hero (from my book She’s
on Top):
“Someone should paint you like that,”
he said. “An Italian painter.”
[Use a dialog tag whenever you need it to ensure
the reader knows who is speaking.]
“Italian?” [No tag is needed
here. There are only two speakers, this dialog
is in a new paragraph, and it’s clearly
a response to the comment above.]
“Only an Italian man can do true justice
to a beautiful woman.” [No tag is needed
here either. However, if dialog goes on for several
paragraphs, don’t go too long without a
dialog or action tag or the reader may lose track
of who is speaking.]
Her mouth curved. “Are you going to
do true justice to me, Signor Mancini?”
[This paragraph starts with an action tag. There’s
no need for a dialog tag as well – e.g.,
“Her mouth curved and she said . . .”
Note also, that she uses his name, in a teasing
fashion.]
“For the rest of our lives.”
[This is clearly his response, so no tag is needed.]
Stay tuned for another instalment of Susan’s
“Highlight Hit List.”
Award-winning author Susan Lyons is a member
of RWA-GVC. She writes sexy romance for Kensington
Aphrodisia and sweet short romance for The Wild
Rose Press. Visit www.susanlyons.ca
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