Being Too Vague Is Not Good
October 31, 2024 by Harvey
In Today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Being Too Vague Is Not Good
* Another Reminder
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Once we realize we are all members of humanity, we will want to compete in the spirit of love.” Muhammad Ali
“You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.” Indira Gandhi
Being Too Vague Is Not Good
I’ve said many times that a good fiction writer is continually learning more about the craft of fiction writing.
Despite the proliferation of how-to books and social media groups, most of that learning comes during practice. It shows up as you’re putting new words on the page.
It also shows up while you’re cycling. By ‘cycling’ I mean reading back over what you wrote during your previous writing session and allowing yourself (your characters) to ‘touch’ the manuscript as you read.
Cycling isn’t revision and it isn’t rewriting or editing.
Cycling is a another form of creation, and as such it is strictly a function of your creative subconscious, not of your conscious, critical mind.
Several novels ago during a cycling session, I had a small but important and powerful epiphany: I was using vague words too often, assuming the reader would know what I meant.
Assuming readers will know what you mean is always a bad idea.
Being too vague is always a mistake.
In my case, those words were pronouns, specifically ‘it,’ ‘he,’ ‘she,’ and ‘they.’ Far too often, I’d used one of those pronouns to refer back to something in a previous paragraph. But sometimes, a pronoun that refers back to something in the previous sentence is too vague.
As a fiction writer, my job is to put a specific picture, character, or action in the reader’s mind. You can’t do that with it, he, she, or they.
So learn from my mistake. Doing so will leap your writing forward.
If by ‘it’ you mean ‘the pistol’ (‘rifle,’ ‘pen,’ ‘knife,’ ‘book,’ ‘finger,’ ‘coffee cup,’ or ‘the Tilt-a-Whirl ride at a local carnival’), write that instead. What what you see in your mind as the story unfolds around you.
If by ‘he’ or ‘she’ you mean ‘Lance’ (‘Sheila,’ ‘my contact,’ ‘the waitress,’ ‘Mr. Drummond,’ ‘my target,’ ‘my friend’ etc.) write that instead.
If by ‘they’ you mean ‘the four women’ (or ‘the group of men’ or ‘my assailants’ or whomever else), write the specific word or phrase instead.
In every case, always go for clarity and negate the chance for misunderstanding. Sometimes, it, he, she or they will do fine. But often they don’t.
Leave as little as possible to the reader’s imagination, and your stories will be much more engaging.
Another Reminder
November 1 dawns tomorrow!
If you want into either the Stephen King Challenge (1000 wpd) or the NaNo Challenge (1667 wpd), email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com to sign up.
Both challenges are free, both have rewards attached, and either one, through your own efforts, will leap your writing forward.
Believe it or not, thus far only a handful of writers have joined either challenge. It’s gettin’ all lonely up here in Fiction Writing Land. (grin)
Oh, and Happy Hallowe’en.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
“Breaking News:” Episode 978: Kindle Vella Takes a Dump!
Explore the history of Halloween
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 550
Writing of Blackwell Ops 30: John Quick Returns
Day 1…… 2155 words. To date…… 2155
Day 2…… 3930 words. To date……. 6085
Day 3…… 3042 words. To date……. 9127
Fiction for October……………………. 92567
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 834075
Nonfiction for October……………….. 30830
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 334420
2024 consumable words……………… 992534
Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 3086
2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 15
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 97
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………..… 255
Short story collections…………………….….. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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Vagueness is why I'm very careful in using "few", "several", "couple", and "handful". In a writing group I belonged to years ago, I asked what those words meant to people. The variety of answers was staggering.
"Couple" wasn't just TWO to some people, it could mean three or four. How they arrive at that for a "couple" is beyond me, but there you go. LOL
I asked the question of the group because I had been reading a book where the author kept using "several" for weeks/hours, and I ended up realizing late in the book that she actually meant TWO when she used "several". Totally threw me as "several" to me is 5 or more, so every place she'd written "several hours" or "several weeks", I was seeing 5 or more hour or well over a month. Threw off the entire timeline of the book for me. I almost threw the book across the room at that point, and I told her about it. LOL
(As an aside, "few" is 3 or 4 in my vocab.)
Most of the people who responded to my question had the same understanding of "couple", "few", and "several" as I do, but there were serious variations among those who didn't. "Handful" was all over the map, regardless of context.
So a couple of questions:
1. If you are writing to a themed anthology (Yes, I know, you are just supposed to write the story, but I like to torture myself), can you be more vague, because the story is with other stories on the same theme? And you expect the reader to fill in some blanks due to them already knowing what the theme was about, since they picked up the book/anthology?
a. For example: You are writing for an anthology that is all about one artist's music - now, you aren't to quote any lyrics or anything, just inspired by the song. But, every story in the anthology is about that artist's songs. So, could you leave out some world building, or be more vague, because it's backboned by the song?
2. If the character(s) you are following are vague (ie not very observant), when I cycle back through, is it better to add a few things that clarify it for the reader? (ie first reader says, "I don't get it...") (Yes, I know, no author intrusion, but you also say that it's the author's job to make things clearer for the reader.)
3. Oh! I forgot and then I remembered. Even if a story is themed like the above, should you then assume it has to stand completely on its own, and you have to add all the details even if it seems to be beating your readers over the head, because of repetition?
Anyway, I'm not talking about writing for myself. I'm specifically talking about writing to anthology (Or someone else's world (I have one of those I've been invited to, also).)
Lastly, I too have a BUNCH of those minor writing sins, which need to be fixed, I guess (he/she/it, too much was-ing, etc.) And repeating words, even if I don't mean to (sometimes you repeat for emphasis.) So, this was a good post reminder of that!
I'm still debating the Nov challenge, guess I have to decide today...