Let's Edit a Story!

 

Good idea, but first we have to make up a story. As a panster (a writer who wings her way through a story without a plan or outline) I vote we whip one up from nothing. Here goes!

One day I was looking out the window and saw my mother in the yard.

Stop!

OK. It’s true you should get the bulk of your story out before you start editing, usually. But when your brain is already kicking you, it’s hard to get a good idea for the next sentence. An opening doesn’t have to be good at the gate, but don’t let it feel rusty, either. Clear it up now and start your story off inspired, rather than anxious.

If you handed me this sentence, I’d immediately ask why you began with “one day?“ If it doesn’t matter which day it is, then leave that out. If it is a specific day, but the actual date doesn’t matter, then tell us what does matter about that day, or why that day matters. Here’s my go at it. (Write your version with me.)

The day my mother put on Dad’s work boots, our life changed.

Look at the improvement the specifics make. It’s no longer just any old day. Here, the day does matter. Why? Because it changed the lives of this narrator’s family. That’s a big thing. That’s the kind of thing stories are made of. It has more meat to it than “one day…”

The new opening creates questions. You’ll want to know why Mom put on Dad’s work boots, why isn’t Dad wearing them, and in what way that little action changed their lives. Now there’s some muscle to push the story along.

Next, consider the passive sentence in the original opening ––>... I was looking out the window...

An easy way to know it’s passive is the word “was.” Was looking. My, my, my. You can’t get much weaker than that. To make that passive sentence active, write I looked rather than I was looking. Naturally, that brings up another problem. Who is the “I?” Who is this narrator?  Male, female? Adult child or teen child? Preteen?

Don’t come right out and say a __-aged boy or girl. Show the reader this information in other ways. For instance, a girl may flick her long hair back. That’s actually quite common in stories (and in life!), and I’m guilty of using it too often myself. It’s a go-to phrase. Make your description more unique. Flicking long hair gives us the idea that the character is female, though males can have long hair as well. Regardless, what other way could we show that this female character has long hair?

How about if she lifts her hair off of her neck as she’s watching out the window? That lets us know not only that the character’s hair is long, but also that it’s a hot day, or at least that the room is hot. If a description can tell us two things instead of one, great. Always go for the description you don’t think everybody else is using. You can describe something everyone will relate to it and still not use a phrase you’ve seen in thousands of stories. You could also show the sweltering temperature by saying sweaty hair or sticky neck.

Try your hand at finishing this story. Until you reach the end, use whatever opening gets the story going. You may not keep your original opening, and that’s okay.

Watch for my next blog post and see what other changes I find for this beginning.

Also, I’d like to use one of your stories for future posts. If you’re interested in getting a family-friendly short story edited for free, please use the little envelope icon on the right to contact me. Stories 300-1200 words will work best for this study. No picture books, please.

Note to readers. In your own work, I recommend finishing a story before tackling any major editing. Always look for the big problems first, weak character arcs, pacing problems, and a lack of logic before weeding out extra words and accidental rhymes. It makes no sense to put a ton of work into a page you later delete. But for learning purposes, we’ll do some minor line editing on this story as we go along and developmental editing once we have a beginning, middle and end.

Happy writing!

 

 

For the Writer Who Can't Outline, the Writer Who Can Only Outline, and the Writers Who Should Outline~from the heart of a pantster

I’m a pantster. Yep, I make up plots as I go (though I always start with a germ of an idea). I don’t worry about writer’s block, because I don’t believe in it. All writer’s block means is that you don’t have an idea you like, or one that inspires you; it doesn’t mean you’re out of ideas. Brains hold a lot. 

I didn’t become a pantster through any firm belief that outlining slows down the creative flow, nor did I come by it because I didn’t know any other way to go about writing. On the contrary, I’ve taken classes, read oodles of how-to books, and studied charts graphing character GMC’s (goals, motivations, and conflicts), high and low points, the climax, and character sketches. Oh yeah, and I read a lot of fiction.

Still, it seemed to me that the best way to start a story was simply to start, keeping GMC’s in mind along the way. Might have to do with laziness, considering that the time put into outlining could be time spent drafting actual chapters.

I’m sort of a detail-oriented person, so I don’t like skipping important steps. I just never thought outlining was one of them. I’m at the polishing stage of a novel, written pantster fashion. Yet I’m now giving outlining some thought. I confess, it’s mainly with the intent of helping a fellow writer who has an awesome idea for a story, but just can’t seem to get herself writing it. 

Here’s a little about her. When she packs her suitcase, she starts weeks in advance, and everything is organized and folded (and for all I know, labeled). I pack the night before, throwing in just what I think I’ll need. Also, her desk is organized enough to show it off. I close the door to my office when company comes to hide my piles and sticky notes. 

Because of these differences, I suspect that in starting a long project, she’d want organization. Organizing her thoughts in such a way that she knows what’s going to happen miles in advance, no surprises to slow her down. 

In my mission, I’m actually outlining a new novel, just to see what it’s like. How can I convince my friend this is the road for her, if I’ve never tried it?

I started last week. Before I wrote word one, fear snuck in. Is it true that writers lose their creativity if they’re not letting their brains run wild on the page? Yikes!

But I rolled up my sleeves. 

As soon as I jotted down notes for the first two chapters, ideas stockpiled into my head and I wanted to “just write.” Forget outlining, a waste of time when I can go full throttle at the novel. Luckily, I remembered the endless revising I’ve been slaving over on my pantster novel. 

Sure don’t want my friend to go through that––it might fracture her meticulously organized way of thinking and doing. Plus, I admit, I probably wouldn’t have had to make so many changes if I had known beforehand what was going to happen. I wouldn’t have wasted time on my third chapter, which I ended up trashing, and I might’ve suspected the kind of makeover chapter four would need in order to work as my new chapter three. And the number of times I changed the first chapter? I can’t count that high. 

Here’s a simple truth. I need to know how a book ends before I know how it should begin. So, for that pantster novel I wrote, once I laid eyes on the final chapter, I had some serious revisions to make in the early chapters.

Wanting to be the best BFF ever, I worked diligently, and what I’ve got going is a semi-outline. A nontraditional outline. An outline that doesn’t have Roman numeral I, II, III, and the A,B, and Cs below them. Instead, I’ve got little mini summaries for each chapter in a sentence or two, sometimes a paragraph or two, like a plot synopsis. (This should help me when it’s time to write the actual plot synopsis that editors often require.) My summaries describe what’s going to happen in each chapter, and to whom, so that I know where the novel will be going from one point to another. 

I’m giving myself the freedom to use abbreviations, fragments, or long windy purple prose. Sometimes I slap in a word to remind me later what it should smell like there, or maybe three odors so I don’t have to make the decision yet. Some chapter summaries have a snippet of dialogue, since the voice readily came to my brain. But that’s a choice. Something you can do at this stage if you want to, and you don’t have to do if you don’t want to. Just focus on the plot.

I’m loving this outlining!

With such short chapter summaries, I’ll be able to read through the entire thing within an hour. That said, I’ll be able to analyze the sequence of events quicker and spot plot holes or lapses in logic. I’ll be able to add or delete stuff right in my little summaries; problems will be solved before I ever get into writing the actual chapters. But once I do, the end result should need fewer revisions than my other novel did.

This sounds like a shortcut. I love shortcuts.

I just might change my pantster spots to the stripes of an outliner, at least a semi-outliner. More importantly, I think this free writing in outline fashion may work for my friend. She can pacify her meticulous brain and stick to the preplanning an outline offers, but also retain the right to add creative descriptions of the setting, clothing, or whatever she wants, so long as she focuses mainly on what happens in each chapter. 

Using such a nonthreatening start as this, how could she not begin? If she hates the finished outline, she’s not out near the time as she would be if she struggled through a novel only to find that it’s one better left in a drawer.

A word of caution:

 

My friend is no newbie at writing, but if you are, in addition to your semi-outline, you should also create character sketches and a chart of each character’s GMC’s. Your character sketches can be real sketchy at this stage and become more complete later on. Besides noting a character’s clothing style, favorite foods, worst fears, and maybe crushes, sketches should also include each character’s history, even though most of this will never land in the novel. Doesn’t matter. It’s still something you need to know before attempting to put “people on the page.” (More on this down the road.)

Do the same for the setting. Yes, you need a character sketch for the character of your setting. But again, this doesn’t have to be super detailed when you’re first drafting your semi-outline and character sketches. Just include a few words as reminders of setting details.

Armed with a semi-outline, an idea on GMC’s and the setting, and the history of the characters, putting a novel together won’t sound so exasperating.

My semi-outline now holds summaries of the first 22 chapters. I’ll keep you in the loop on my progress, and on how to proceed on the semi-outline you should be starting for your new novel right now. 

And to my writing friend,

Happy writing!

The State vs. Debi O’Neille, Case 55-cr-13-6514

Debi sat in the witness stand, her long hair in a neat fold on the back of her head. She wondered if she could avoid perjury by creatively answering the gray-haired, arrogant, no-necked prosecuting attorney’s questions.

“Didn’t you, in fact, use the word “looked” in your first chapter a total of three times, and similarly, the word “glanced” twice?”

Jerk. Of course he’d ask questions designed specifically for yes or no answers—only an idiot would misunderstand.

Idiot speaking here –“I always restrict those verbs to situations where absolutely necessary, but I didn’t count how many instances were necessary in this particular chapter.”

“Yes or no?” the attorney asked.

Geez, could they cut down on the furniture oil in this place? The lemon smell was nauseating. Debi clasped her hands tighter together in her lap, as if that would help her nerves. At least she wasn’t shaking. Not on the outside, anyway.

“I don’t recall the exact number of times,” she said. “Overused verbs can usually be avoided, because—”

In a half-turn toward the jury, the prosecutor said, “Ms O’Neille, a yes or no, please.”

“You don’t need to tell readers that a character is looking at something—”

“Your Honor, ple-e-ease,” the prosecutor said to the judge, who expelled a long sigh.

“Not when you're in that character’s point of view,” Debi continued, “and you describe the something being looked at.”

She had him there. He seemed a bit confused. He rubbed a finger over his brow. Oh how she wanted to smile.

“So by your own admission, it’s likely you didn’t need to use either looked or glanced in your writing, and yet you did; isn’t that true?”

Well holy cookies and ice cream—of course I did. Who doesn’t? “Again, sir, I don’t recall.” Oops. That might be a little white one. She didn’t remember how many times she’d used either word, but she did believe she’d used them. At least once. Or more.

“Ms O’Neille, would you like me to repeat the question?”

Which was …? “I’m sure I would have used them a time or two, but there are situations where it isn’t ridiculous for them to be included in a great sentence. For instance—”

“That will be all,” the attorney said, his shark gaze right on her. “No further questions.”

The heat of seven hells washed through Debi, a mixture of anger, frustration, and humiliation. Anger because she hated being cut off, as if what she had to say didn’t matter. Probably a lot of ex-husbands in the world had become exes for that very tactic. The frustration stemmed because she had a good answer, right on the tip of her tongue, and though no one was waiting for it, she wanted to let it out. The humiliation sprang from the collision of anger and frustration, which no doubt showed in bright flaming color on her face. She worked her hands in her lap. Would it be legal to ask to be excused?

She was saved from further worry when her own attorney addressed her. “Ms O’Neille, you looked like you had something to say at the end of that … battering interrogation.”

“Objection,” the prosecutor shouted.

The long-faced judge looked at the defense attorney. “Mr. Diehl, please rephrase your statement, and perhaps you could ask a question.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” He smiled then trained his dark eyes on her. “Would you please share what you had been about to say?”

“I was simply going to explain that there are times when looked and glanced aren’t errors in understanding how point of view works, so it’s only natural they’d show up in anyone’s writing, including mine. For instance, when the narration directs the reader to watch a character who is not the point-of-view character, but a secondary character who is glancing or looking about, then we can use those words. We wouldn’t be in that character’s point of view, and the point-of-view character would certainly notice and report if the other person looked in a certain direction or gazed at anything specific. The point-of-view character would describe that little action of the other character turning his attention to this or that, whatever the case may be.”

“So, to simplify, you’re saying that using looked and glanced in your work might have been a deliberate decision?”

“Exactly. You just can’t use them too close together in a paragraph or per page, or they’ll echo. You’ll see that when you read this transcript.” She nodded toward the court reporter.

The defense attorney smiled at the judge. “I have no more questions, Your Honor.”

When Debi stepped down from the witness stand, with all the smug arrogance of a true writer, she walked with an air of royalty, chin up and eyes welcoming to the many smiles she expected to see. “Case closed,” she said to no one in particular. “And so, I rest my case on the case of looked and glanced.”

THE WRITE PATH!

This isn’t really late for “The Write Path” submission. I emailed mine directly to Carrie Butler when it was due, but then I had a few people ask me why I didn’t post my article. So here it is.

 

The Write Path

One lesson I tripped on along the way to publication still haunts me. I submitted to a magazine that seemed a good home for one of my stories. This was back in the day when simultaneous submissions were an invitation to get yourself blackballed from a trusting publisher. Nowadays, as long as you disclose that a manuscript is a simultaneous submission, it’s fine.

 It didn’t turn out fine for me twelve years ago. I never informed the publisher my story was a simultaneous submission, because initially, it wasn’t. I submitted the story to them alone. However, having not heard from them a year and a half later, I decided to remarket the story. I wanted to do it right. Following etiquette, I sent a note requesting that my story be withdrawn from their consideration.

I had no way of knowing their acceptance letter crossed in the mail with my request. Unfortunately, the publisher had already sent my story to press when my notice arrived, and she was upset. It was too late to stop the presses. I received a heated phone call. Yes, I apologized.

Eighteen months is a long time to wait, so what should I have done? The professional thing would have been to send a status inquiry at least once before ever sending a notice to withdraw the submission. Had I sent a simple note stating that I’d like to keep the story in circulation if they weren’t interested, and politely requested that they let me know how much more time they needed, the end result would have been better.

They would’ve informed me they’d already sent a letter of acceptance. And if they hadn’t sent one yet at the time they received my inquiry, they at least would have been aware I wanted a decision made soon. Perhaps they would’ve told me that they needed only a couple more weeks to make sure they had room for the story before formally accepting it.

My story was published, and because I’d sent the story to another publisher the same day I sent the first a notice to withdraw, I immediately let the second publisher know the story had already been accepted elsewhere.

When I received my free copy of the publication featuring my story, disappointment deflated any excitement I could’ve had. A few necessary words had been omitted from the first paragraph, leaving an unclear meaning in a verb-less mess. I tried to convince myself the omission wasn’t a last-minute decision to pay me back for putting them under stress, but occasionally I’ve had doubts. On the other hand, publishers take pride in the magazines they put out, so it’s unlikely there was any malicious intent. Still, because of that butchered paragraph, I’ve never whipped out that magazine for any bragging rights, nor have I dared submitting to them again.

The best thing to do, whether submitting to a print publication or an online journal, is to tell the editor or publisher upfront if your story is a simultaneous submission. If you feel you should have received a response by a given date and you haven’t, send a polite inquiry before you even think about withdrawing your piece.

They may have put time into pre-publication preparations just to make sure they could fit your story into available space before they let you know whether or not they could accept it. Just as you don’t want your time wasted, don’t waste theirs. No one should have to wait eighteen months, but if you do, then go the extra step to send out an inquiry before you make a rash decision. It beats kicking yourself later.

Happy Writing!

ENDING A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION?

Why not? If it works better than the alternative, then that’s exactly what you should do. To do less would make you a hack, not a writer.

As Lauren Kessler and Duncan McDonald say in WHEN WORDS COLLIDE (Wadsworth Publishing Company), which is available on Amazon for—ahem—a whopping $5$ to $98, “We feel the same way about this as we do about cracking open fresh eggs with only one hand. Do it as long as you don’t make a mess. Scrambling a sentence to put a preposition in the center of it often creates an awkward construction. Example:

“This is a sentence up with which a writer will not put.

“You’re looking for clarity, right? Isn’t that what good writing is about?”

Their point is well taken.

The book is considered a media writer’s guide to grammar and style; but to me, it’s the guide to grammar and style. (Of course, I bought it back in the stone ages when ink wasn’t so costly.)

Now many of you know, THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE is the first book I recommend when anyone mentions wanting to learn the breath of a copyeditor. But have you seen that book? Held it UP? It’s probably half my weight (and if you believe that, I’ve got a car you might be interested in.). The CMS is heavy. If you’re thinking of hiking down to the park while you edit a few pages, this is not the book you’ll want to tote along. But WHEN WORDS COLLIDE is a paperback, spiral bound and easy to lift.

What’s more, it isn’t filled with such scholarly language that you picture a thin-nosed, persnickety old man wearing spectacles and sharing his superior wisdom as you study. It’s filled with logic about sentence clarity, but in a way that everybody gets. Like the comment about cracking fresh eggs, it’s entertaining. If readers are entertained while they learn, they might take the time and effort to learn a tad more. Along with the giggle some of the comments will give you, the concise language and interesting examples are ones that will stay with the reader, rather than be forgotten at the turn of the page. That makes the resource worth more than the cost of ink.

Would I pay 98 bucks for it today? Yeah, as long as my husband wasn’t looking.

Note: I'd probably opt for the used price, if the book was in good condition.

Happy writing!

Stamping Out Writer’s Block the Rainy-Day Way!

Have you ever heard of saving for a rainy day? The idea works for more than just money. It’s a great method to make sure you are never stuck staring at an empty screen. You may not always be able to pump out ideas on a specific subject on a specific date, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get any writing done.

At least three times a week, jumpstart your creativity by focusing only on different ideas for a handful of story premises. A story premise is the central idea of a story. Every story has to be about something, and that something defines its premise.

 

Put this document on your desktop in a folder titled Rainy-day Premises.

Don’t worry about who the major players will be, or where the story will take place, or when. Who cares if it’s going to be a rainy day or a sunny day in your future story? Right now, all you need to focus on is creating new premises. Don’t strive to make them word-for-word perfect. Just get them down.

Examples:

1.      Only one item survives a fire, and that item brings clarity to a misconception about another person’s life

2.      A person tries to find the owner of a lost dog but finds something else instead.

3.      On a dare, kids enter an abandoned house and, after finding nothing even mildly scary inside, they go home—where they meet up with an evil they didn’t expect.

Never leave your idea without unanswered questions hanging in it. Those questions are what will lead you back into the story on another day.

1.       Who found the item? What is his/her relationship to the item’s owner?

2.      Where did the character find the dog? What was he or she doing there?

3.      What did they find in the house? How does the evil they discover when they get home tie into their expectations of what they didn’t find in the house?

Keeping a list of story premises also works as a warm-up session to get your juices flowing to use on other projects, like the one with the deadline weighing you down.

Take advantage of the days your brain is full and write down a slew of premises. Then, should the day ever come that you’re stricken with a bad case of writer’s block, guess what? It’s raining.

When you dip into the premises you’ve been gathering, find the one that speaks the loudest to you that day. Again, it may not be the perfect idea, but if it’s the loudest at the moment, just start writing. Let the premise speak to you.

You’ll be surprised to discover that ideas you came up with a week ago somehow rode in the back of your mind, even if you weren’t aware of it. They’ve crept into the crevices of your creative self, and without realizing you’d given a certain premise any more thought, you probably already know who the character to lead this story needs to be. You might even have an inkling as to what this character has been up to.

Give the character a name, a purpose, and most importantly an attitude (whether good or bad, so you’ll get to know him or her right away through voice.) Put your character on the page and see how he or she lives through the premise you’ve created.

Then, whether you continue to work on this story the next day or that big project you’ve been putting off, don’t forget to also write a few more premises, just in case you have another rainy day.

Be aware that while having this bank of ideas waiting to be fleshed out, it’s likely you’ll never endure enough rainy days to use them all. This can be a bit depressing because you’ll be excited about your new ideas and want to try them on, but don’t fret. At least you’re ready if you’re ever faced with a blank screen.

Happy writing!

When Are Echoes Okay in Your Writing?

Anyone who has ever had a story or article critiqued by me knows that I slash through echoes like weeds in Eden. Repeated words, for the most part, create a distracting noise in a reader’s head, like a song that goes on one note too long, ruining the otherwise beautiful rhythm. I don’t like echoes.

Unless they are purposeful and wise.

So when is that?

Anytime someone asks me this question, my first thought for an example usually is John Milton’s works – PARADISE LOST, PARADISE REGAINED, ON EDUCATION, among others. Back in college, woefully accepted by most students, the professor assigned the reading and analytical studying of Milton’s prose and essays. Personally, I was in awe at his work. Through careful observation—in hopes of getting an A—I noted that he used a lot of repetition in his work, but he used it in a specific way.

For instance the word light, symbolic not only in a religious sense, but also in meaning knowledge, appeared in more than one sentence in a single paragraph. Synonyms were used too, but he did not shy away from pulling out the exact same word he’d already used. Why did he do this?

I can’t be sure, but I can explain the effect it had on my reading. As I read a second, third, or even later sentence, I realized it couldn’t be done (reading further) without your brain retracing what was already said, a little echo reminding you of what had been read in the first sentence. Not in a way of beating you over the head with an idea, but in a way where each new sentence reinforced a previous notion or image, while at the same time introducing some new element toward a larger idea, or going deeper into the concept of the idea. Reading his work was like watching a drip land in a puddle, and then watching each ripple as it expands.

Now for those of you reluctant to go back and read something centuries old, here’s a newer masterpiece that also uses repetition in a wonderful way: THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher, published in 2007 by Razorbill, a young adult imprint of Penguin.

Does it echo? Yes, in the most satisfying rippling effect an author or reader could want. (No noise, just beautiful music that’s as enlightening as it is enticing.) It brings to mind the idea that you cannot go forward, without also bringing with you a little of the past. For instance, when you consider an education, your knowledge (everything you’ve learned in the past), has an effect on how you interpret what you are learning today.

So to bring this idea to your writing with intentional repetition brings a deeper meaning that readers may not recognize right off, but it will tease their subconscious into another level of understanding. At least, I think it will.

Asher shows an effective use of repetition on Page 178: (Note, the italics indicate a different character speaking—Hannah.)

(Clay, the narrator.) “… But the headlights don’t gradually fade away, which they should if he kept backing up or turned away. Instead, they just stop.

As if turned off.

(Hannah’s voice.) Looking back, I stopped writing in my notebook when I stopped wanting to know myself anymore.

(Clay) Is he out there, sitting in his car, waiting? Why?

(Hannah) If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don’t want to cry anymore, you don’t listen to that song anymore.

But you can’t get away from yourself. You can’t decide not to see yourself anymore. You can’t decide to turn off the noise in your head.

Notice the repetition of the words turned—used with away and with off—away, stop, and back. In addition to repeating exact words, ideas are reemphasized, such as turned off and stopped. So, when you read a third or fourth sentence, it echoes with the previous sentence. Then it ripples and when you read forward again, you are bringing a little of the past with you.

Considering the fact that this novel is based on the thirteen reasons a young girl committed suicide, and the narrator’s struggle to face and accept it, and then move forward, the repetition is very powerful. Naturally, there will be no movement forward for the narrator or the reader in a novel like this without bringing some of the past along. Asher’s writing style, then, parallels his theme.

We see this technique used again on page 250:                                      

“I want to look back. To look over my shoulder and see the Stop sign with huge reflective letters, pleading with Hannah. Stop!

But I keep facing forward, refusing to see it as more than it is. It’s a sign. A stop sign on a street corner. Nothing more.”

Here the author comes right out and gives us the word forward, “facing forward” and follows it with the word refusing, which is a type of not moving forward. He parallels that, reinforcing it, with stopping. So we see this back and forth motion, two steps forward, and one step back, and then forward again, symbolically laying out how a person moves through life.

If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it.

Now for your own studies, look at the story, “As I Walk Out One Evening,” written by HC Hsu and published by the online literary journal, TOASTED CHEESE. Study the repetition and analyze the purpose for it. Notice how repeated words don’t read like a distracting echo, but a way of somehow restating a truth, further clarifying an idea, giving it a ripple.

In your own writing, if you are not sure whether using the same word again will distract the reader like a screaming echo, or if it will be read as an intelligent choice in going forward, then backward and forward again, don’t use it. Don’t use it until you are confident that repeating a specific word in close proximity to a previous instance of the word, is exactly what you should do.

In the meantime, you can always find a similar word which can do the same work; and sometimes that’s what you want. Something to bring a previous notion forward again, but not as strongly as when you use the exact word a second or third time.  

Before you begin, you might be wondering how you can know if a specific word was repeated intentionally, or if it was an oversight the editor missed.

1.      If you consider the numerous echoes in the short section of Asher’s book quoted above, you can safely assume no editor would miss that many repetitions. Yes, most novels get published with a typo or two, but it’s always obvious that they are simply that, typos. Even then, it’s unlikely you’d find this many in a short space.

2.      Elsewhere, the book is not littered with needless and annoying echoes. So, the logical conclusion is the repetition was planted specifically for a specific reason. It is your job, as the reader, to let that reason resonate in your mind.

3.      When the effect is astounding rather than annoying. My tongue didn’t trip when I read Asher’s paragraphs.

Happy reading and writing!