Editing Stage #5: Decoration

As a quick recap, I'm posting a series on editing. In this series I am using a house as metaphoric language in describing the stages of editing. Last week we looked at stage four, the utilities, so this week we are focusing on stage five: decoration.

Decoration in editing is word choice, speech tags, and the use of paragraphs.

Word Choice

Stories are made of words. Words have connotations and sounds that give them a unique texture. So, it makes sense that word choice is important. It determines the voice, atmosphere, and tone (which is part of the atmosphere, but I'll state it anyway).

Despite it importance, I put word choice here because of all the editing that has to be done before the book is complete. Not much else is as frustrating as completing a round of editing, and finding your word choice was messed up again. Thus the need to go through, again, and fix it, sentence by sentence.

What is word choice? Essentially, it is what it sounds: the words you choose to include in your work. Every word should be carefully considered for historical accuracy, and tone, among other things. These work together to make up the story's atmosphere. Let's say, for example, you want your story to feel whimsical. You'd probably include lots of words with soft sounds, like whisper, whim, slit, silence, and caress. If the atmosphere is intense, stronger, puncher words like vapor, glitch, glint, grope, gritty (only words with gas are coming to mind right now) might be in your word list.

Play around with it. Developing word choice is a lot of fun, and it's an adventure all in itself.

I have a theory, not proven, but just a thought of mine, that you can have an overarching word tone, but change it subtly at certain intervals. In my Viking book, for instance, I have a lot of softer sounds, with a little archaic language thrown in. This creates a thoughtful tone. But in an intense scene, I include more hard, almost vicious words that have some form of soft sounds, if that makes sense.

Speech Tags

There's a piece of writing advice that makes me cringe: don't use "said". That was something I was taught in school. The curriculum my mom used (I was homeschooled) had a list of weak words we were not allowed to use in your summaries, and such a list is helpful. We couldn't use was, beautiful, big, small, said, and others I can't remember. This is great for teaching the use of stronger words, but many times people can go too far with it. In all my earliest stories, I religiously avoided "said" at all cost. My writing was peppered with inquired, exclaimed, wondered, whined, and other strong verbs.

While such words are good, they are distracting. They jolt a reader and bring them out of the story, ultimately drawing attention to themselves. Said is a powerful speech tag, because it flies under the radar. The reader absorbs it without realizing it, which is a good thing.

The other side of the spectrum of "said" usage is using them too much. After every line of dialogue. The solution? Cut some out. If we know who is talking, we don't need speech tags. I think this is the reason why the "advice" to stay away from using said is pushed so often, is because early writers use it too much. They're on the right track but have to tone it down a little.

Another way to identify who's speaking is to use action beats. Using action beats is my favorite way to identify speakers, because it gives the reader a better picture and keeps your characters from becoming talking heads. When I have trouble with speech tags--maybe I just used said, and no other word would work--I throw in an action beat. Maybe a character frowns or scratches their head or turns away to hide a smile or tears.

The Use of Paragraphs

This is another technique that I learn and wonder, why did no one teach me this before? How you use your paragraphs has a big impact on the narrative. I read somewhere (unfortunately cannot remember where. If anyone knows where this quote comes from, please let me know!) that your paragraphs tell your reader how to breathe. It brings out elements that otherwise would have been lost in all the other words.

We've all been taught to make a new paragraph when we switch to a new topic, a new place, or a new speaker. But it goes even deeper than that. I like to put important thoughts in their own paragraph, even if it's just one word.

For example, here's a section from my Viking book, without setting off important thoughts:

She fixed her eyes on the ocean before them, watching sea foam spray upward as the hull of the boat cut through the water. Cooray was somewhere beyond the line where sky and sea met, and after a year’s absence, she would finally see it again. But a year was a long time, and her island had gone through so much. It would be different. She would still be at home there, wouldn’t she? 

Home. She looked back a final time. The island had vanished.

And here's how it actually reads:

She fixed her eyes on the ocean before them, watching sea foam spray upward as the hull of the boat cut through the water. Cooray was somewhere beyond the line where sky and sea met, and after a year’s absence, she would finally see it again.

But a year was a long time, and her island had gone through so much. It would be different. She would still be at home there, wouldn’t she?

Home.

She looked back a final time. The island had vanished.

Conclusion

That wraps up the last post on editing stages! Exploring this style of editing made me think a lot about what goes into it, and I hope it made you think as well. There are so many other parts of editing that I could have talked about, but it would have made this series really long. And, the other elements could possibly fit into the larger categories in each stage.

Next week, I'll leave what editing stages are, and discuss how I use them. So stay tuned!

Writers, what do you think? What could I have explored in more detail? What do you think is the most important part of editing? What is the hardest part of editing in this stage, and what do you do to complete it?

Happy writing!