The other day I picked up one of my wife’s newly purchased
paperbacks by a successful and popular author and opened it at random, page 280.
I immediately thought that the author and editor had not really given the work
enough consideration, if this example was anything to go by:
She looked
alarmed. “You’ll come back to London soon, I hope.”
“If you’re
there, then I’ll devise a good excuse.” He looked at her fondly, but his smile
faltered.
“I’m
looking forward to riding out. I haven’t ridden a horse in years.”
“Don’t worry,
(the horse) is very placid. She’ll look after you. And so will I!”
No author name, no book title. That’s not the point. Let's consider this as
an exercise in editing.
I checked the previous page and a bit. The scene is from the
heroine’s point of view. So how can she ‘look alarmed’ since she can’t see
herself? She felt alarmed, if we want to be simplistic, though this is virtually ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’. She could show ‘alarm’ in several ways –
stepping back, a hand to her throat or covering her heart, her lip quivering, her
heart tripping, all visual or emotional responses.
As for ‘looked’ – we have variants of that repeated no less
than four times in 8 lines of contiguous text in the book. They’re ‘echo words’
– lodged in the subconscious and spewed out in the first draft phase; but they
should be expunged in the later editing sessions.
She looked
alarmed. “You’ll come back to London soon, I hope.”
“If you’re
there, then I’ll devise a good excuse.” He looked
at her fondly, but his smile faltered.
“I’m looking forward to riding out. I haven’t
ridden a horse in years.”
“Don’t worry,
(the horse) is very placid. She’ll look
after you. And so will I!”
It’s quite simple to get rid of all those repetitions, look:
Her throat
tightened in alarm at the prospect of him never leaving here. “You’ll come back
to London soon, I hope.”
“If you’re
there,” he said with a gentle smile, “then I’ll devise a good excuse.” But the
curve of his lips faltered.
“I’m
excited about riding out. I haven’t ridden a horse in years.”
“Don’t worry,
(the horse) is very placid. She’ll take care of you. And so will I!”
As they’re both in a foreign country as they talk, perhaps
she should have said, “You’ll return to London…” rather than “come back”.
And there’s still the question of why his smile faltered.
Did he mean what he promised or not? As she noted it, wouldn’t she dwell on
that, fearing his sincerity?
What caused the sudden switch to riding on a horse – when riding
was last mentioned about a page earlier? No continuity of thought or speech, no
leading phrase to generate the thoughts or words about riding; no flow.
Yes, this is a trifle unfair, a section 'taken out of context'. How many authors (me included)
self-edit every little section of a book that can be about 100,000 words long?
I’d argue that we try. But perhaps as some authors become successful, like this
one, they become lazy and don’t exert themselves. On the other hand, in my
humble opinion the editors aren’t doing their job, either.
So, look out for those irritating repetitions.
4 comments:
We all miss things, I know that, but some books are so sloppy you wonder whether anyone bothered to read them after the first draft. I've come to the conclusion that with the dumbing down of language in general (text speak and the fact that people don't seem to talk to each other, for example), people are more interested in the story than how it's written. Fifty Shades would appear to be an example of this from the snippets I've seen littered around on the Internet. Sadly, for the masses, it's content then (perhaps) style that's important. A shame, in my humble opinion.
You're right, Jo. And it's disappointing when standards slip to such an extent. It's a pity, too. Mediocre writing can tell a good story; but good writing can tell a great story.
All very true, Nik. I must admit, I am becoming increasingly intolerant of sloppily edited books. However interesting the story, I become distracted by the lack of quality, and sadly that means I tend to favour the "big" publishers, who still turn out the most polished products.
Thanks for the feedback, Jane. Sadly, my example was taken from one of the 'big' publishers! :)
Post a Comment