FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

Find out how to balance the scenes in a crime novel or thriller by using different types of beats that help readers understand the fictional world they’re immersed in. There's a free sample scene analysis too!

• Emotion beats: for sensibility
• Action beats: for movement
• Inaction beats: for breathing space
• Description beats: for stability
• Dialogue beats: for expression
• Why mixing up beats makes scenes more interesting
• How to analyse a scene for beat balance
• Download a FREE sample analysis

Fiction writers, and the editors who support them, can use different types of beats to make a scene interesting: emotion, action, inaction, description and dialogue beats.

​All have their place. Here’s how each works to create a more fully rounded scene.
I’ve focused on examples from crime fiction and thrillers, but the advice below could equally be applied to other genres.

Emotion beats tell readers how the viewpoint character is feeling. They bring sensibility to a scene.

A viewpoint character is the character from whose perspective we experience the story. In first-person-limited and third-person-limited narratives, readers have access to what’s going on inside their heads – for example, their emotions, thoughts and decision-making processes.

Access to this internal space helps us empathize with them and make sense of their motivations. That doesn’t mean we have to like them, but we do understand them. And that brings them to life and makes them more interesting.

Action beats help readers imagine how a character is physically behaving and can give us insights into the environment and the person’s traits. They bring movement to a scene.
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Perhaps a viewpoint character stands up because the overly soft chair is making their sciatica play up; maybe an object’s being discussed, and they push it away in disgust; or perhaps they rub their bare feet across the rough pile of a rug in order to soothe themselves in an unformattable situation.
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These beats are particularly useful when an author wants to convey emotions being experienced by a non-viewpoint character whose internal head-space isn’t accessible in limited narrative styles. Perhaps wiping sweat off their forehead indicates they’re feeling nervous, or their fidgeting with a beer mat indicates boredom.

Inaction beats are pauses, hesitations and moments of silence or stillness. Even when these are short, they help the reader understand pace. They bring breathing space to a scene.
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They’re powerful because they can show rather than tell more than one character’s contemplation, consideration, indecision, or shock. The prose might state the stillness or silence directly, or it can be nuanced and come in the form of a character’s taking stock of a situation or bracing themselves for a potential upset. 

Description beats give readers objective information about the character or environment. They bring stability to a scene.
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They help readers understand what characters are wearing, what they look like, what’s surrounding them, what they can hear, see, smell, touch or taste. That brings the scene alive.

Dialogue beats tell readers what characters are saying and let readers hear those distinct voices in action. Vocal speech can be heard, and so dialogue beats bring expression to a scene.
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Like action beats, dialogue is an opportunity to bring depth to non-viewpoint characters in limited narrative styles. Their internal opinions and feelings – which we don’t have access to because we’re not in their heads – are revealed to us. 

Too much of anything is rarely a good thing, and the same applies to a novel’s beats. When a scene’s constructed primarily around a particular type of beat, there’s a risk the reader will become frustrated and lose interest.

Writers and their publishing teams can use the drafting and editing stages to analyse the prose and evaluate whether there’s sufficient balance. 

Must all 5 beats be introduced? No, certainly not. There’s no formula to writing compelling fiction. Good line craft means making a judgement about what’s missing and what might be added. 

Approach 1
One way of approaching this is to think not in terms of the different types of beats but instead in terms of what they contribute, and whether there’s too much or too little. 

​And so writers and their editors can ask: Which of the following should the reader experience in this scene, and are they present? Here’s a summary of those elements:

• Sensibility (via emotion beats)
• Movement (via action beats)
• Breathing space (via inaction beats)
• Stability (via description beats)
• Expression (via dialogue beats)

I've carried out a sample scene analysis using this method with a stunning excerpt from SA Cosby’s Razorblade Tears. Use the button below to get your free copy.

Using different types of beats in a scene helps readers to understand where the character is, what’s around them, how they feel and what’s important to them. Over-reliance on one type can lead to boredom and frustration; mix things up to keep them interested and turning the page.

• Editing Fiction at Sentence Level: book
• Fiction editing line craft: books
• How to Line Edit for Suspense: multimedia course
• How to Write the Perfect Editorial Report: multimedia course
• Narrative Distance: multimedia course
• Resource library
• Switching to Fiction: multimedia course​

Want to line edit crime fiction and thrillers? Pick up some handy tips to help you on your way.

Listen to find out more about:

• What's distinctive about editing crime fiction and thrillers
• What a good line editor needs to look out for
• What new entrants to the field need to study
• Marketing ideas
• Top tips for being a successful freelance editor/proofreader
• Do fiction editors use style guides?

• Course: How to Line Edit for Suspense
• Course:Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors
• Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
• How to check a novel with PerfectIt 5 and The Chicago Manual of Style
• ​Resources for fiction editors and writers

If you'd like to support The Editing Podcast, thank you! That means the world to us.

​‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Are your thriller’s sentences front-loaded with filter words? If so, you could be slowing your reader down. This post explains what filter words are, how they affect a sentence and how to decide whether to include them or ditch them.

Read on to find out more about:
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• Why the start of a sentence is important.
• What filter words are.
• How filter words reduce momentum.
• How filter words make space for reflection.

If you’ve read any guidance about online writing, you’ll have come across the concept of front-loading a sentence. It means putting the most important stuff at the start. The idea is that website visitors are busy and scan for relevance. The quicker they find it, the more likely they are to engage.

While a novel that reads like a Google snippet from start to finish isn’t likely to win any prizes, the principle is worth paying attention to because the information at the start of a novel’s sentence is still what the reader will pay most attention to.
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The start of a sentence is therefore valuable real estate. If filter words are being assigned to that top spot too often, more interesting subjects and verbs are likely being demoted.  

In everyday speech, we sometimes use the term ‘filter’ to convey a sense of slowdown or separation, usually because of a barrier of some sort. For example:

• Sunlight filtered through the tree canopy.
• Over the next couple of hours, information about the explosion filtered out of the camp.
  
• The children filtered through the turnstile and lined up in in yard.

In literature, filter words are verbs that do a similar thing – they slow down the reader’s access to what the viewpoint character is experiencing.

Examples include 'watched', 'saw', 'noticed', 'spotted', 'looked at', 'felt', 'thought', 'wondered', 'heard', 'realised' and 'knew'.

Take a look at this short excerpt from Chapter 2 of Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby.

Ike is the viewpoint character, which means we experience the scene from his perspective.

Notice first what’s front-loading those two sentences. The subjects (Ike in the first, ‘she’ – Ike’s wife – in the second) and the verbs  ‘let go’ and ‘slumped’.

That front-loading forces our gaze outwards – first towards Ike, then towards the movement of Ike’s wife’s body.

Now let’s introduce a filter word.

Now the second sentence is front-loaded with a new verb – ‘watched’. Our access to the movement (the slumping) has been slowed down. We can’t shift directly to it without taking an extra step that involves centring our gaze for just a second on Ike’s watching. 

In that brief moment, we’re no longer looking outward at what Ike’s experiencing. Instead, we’re looking inward at Ike and how he acquires that experience – by watching.

Less experienced writers can be tempted to overuse filter words. Indeed, it’s one of the most common problems I see in my editing studio. At sentence-level revision stage – whether that work’s being done by the writer themselves or with the help of a professional editor – it’s therefore worth watching out for them and assessing whether they’re impeding the novel’s pace.

Thrillers are supposed to thrill, and action-packed scenes such as escapes, fights, heists and chases need to be written with razor-sharp precision so that readers don’t start skimming.

Problematic filter words can appear anywhere in a sentence, but front-loading sentences with them is even more likely to rip the momentum out of the prose. If you want your readers to focus on the action, make sure that any you retain are earning their keep.
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Take a look at an excerpt from a published thriller that I’ve fiddled with. It’s a heist scene and the action takes place in a matter of seconds. The viewpoint character is coked up to his eyeballs and desperate, acting on impulse.

The three instances of filtering moderate the pace and draw our attention towards the narrator’s doing knowing, thinking and watching, none of which are as interesting as what he knows, thinks and watches. All those filter words act as barriers that the reader has to jump over in order to get to the action.

We could even argue that they introduce a sort of voyeurism – as if Ronnie is reflecting on the impact of his violence, almost in slow motion. But that’s not what’s going on here. Rather, he’s wired, out of control and operating in the moment.
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And that’s why the unadulterated version of Blacktop Wasteland  (p. 113) – also by S.A. Cosby – is perfect:

The filter words have gone, and with them the unintended pathological introspection, but the momentum is restored. We're in the moment with Ronnie as he lashes out. It's no less violent but the pace of the prose now mirrors the action authentically.

Sometimes, however, the author wants us to slow down, step back and focus inward on the acquisition of experience.
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Let’s take a look at another example from Cosby’s Razorblade Tears, this one also from Chapter 2.

The filter phrase is ‘looked at’, and it’s important. Ike is looking hard at what’s in front of him. As will be revealed later, this girl is his murdered son’s daughter. Ike recalls something he’d said to his son a few months earlier: ‘But that little girl, she gonna have it hard enough already. She's half Black. Her mama was somebody you paid to carry her, and she got two gay daddies. So now what?’

Ike and his wife will now be raising the little girl. Cosby wants to focus our attention inward for a moment on Ike’s reflection, and the filter word makes space for that.

While filter words can be effective when they’re used to create a sense of introspection, littering prose with them will be disruptive and pull the reader out of the viewpoint character's headspace. In other words, the psychic or narrative distance will be widened and we’ll feel disconnected from the immediacy of the character’s experience.

For that reason, always use filter words judiciously. In the above example, Cosby offers just a single nudge, and it’s enough.

Every filter word needs to be assessed on its own merits. Some will have a place in a novel because the author wants to introduce a sense of introspection into a viewpoint character’s narrative. Just bear in mind the following:

• When filter words front-load a sentence, they’re the first thing a reader notices. 
• They destroy momentum and so are often best avoided in pacy action scenes, regardless of their position.
• And even if they do serve a purpose – focusing a reader’s attention inwards on how the viewpoint character acquires the experience they’re reporting (by looking, thinking, feeling etc.) – it's worth keeping their use to a bare minimum. One nudge will likely be enough.

Take a look at these related resources for editors and writers. They'll help you develop your fiction line craft:
​

• For editors: Fiction editing learning centre
• ​For authors: Line craft learning centre
• Becoming a Fiction Editor (free booklet for editors)
• Blacktop Wasteland, Cosby, S.A., Headline, 2020
• Editing Fiction at Sentence​ Level (book for editors and authors)
• Filter words in fiction: Purposeful inclusion and dramatic restriction (blog post)
• Making Sense of ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ (book for editors and authors)
• Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors (course)
• Razorblade Tears, Cosby, S.A., Headline, 2021
• Switching to Fiction (course for editors)

Here are three clutter checks you can carry out on your novel. Reviewing, and editing where appropriate, will help keep your crime fiction, thriller or mystery writing tight and engaging. 

In this post, I look at the following ways of decluttering prose in commercial fiction: 

• Clutter check #1: Reviewing filter words
• Clutter check #2: Reviewing speech tags
• Clutter check #3: Reviewing action beats

Filter words are verbs that focus the reader’s gaze inwards on the senses a character is using to experience action with.

Too many filter words that explain this sensory behaviour in action can make prose feel told rather shown, and increase narrative distance.

Examples include ‘noticed’, ‘seemed’, ‘spotted’, ‘saw’, ‘realized’, ‘felt’, ‘thought’, ‘wondered’, ‘believed’, ‘knew’ and ‘decided’.
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Removing them focuses the reader’s gaze outwards on what is being experienced.

Sometimes an author wants an inward focus, but it’s often the case that the reader will assume that an odour is being smelled, a view is being seen, a thought is being thought, and knowledge is being known.

Review your narrative and consider whether the removal of a filter word would make the prose shorter and more immersive.

​Here are some examples:

Great speech tags help the reader keep track of who’s speaking without drawing attention away from the dialogue.
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Review your dialogue tags and consider the following:
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• Is the tag necessary?
• Is the tag taking centre stage?
• Is the tag illogical?

​If there are only two characters in a scene, it might be obvious who’s speaking, which gives the author space to introduce reminder nudges only now and then.

‘Said’ is often best because it’s used so frequently in novels that it’s almost invisible. ‘Asked’ is also inoffensive when used to tag questions in dialogue. Others like ‘whispered’, ‘yelled’, ‘hissed’, ‘spat’ and ‘barked’ can be useful when used sparingly to convey volume and mood.
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Showy speech tags scream their presence from the page, and shift the reader’s attention away from the dialogue and onto the tag. They often tell what the dialogue’s already shown, and indicate a lack of trust in the reader to get the speech. Examples include ‘exclaimed’, ‘opined’, ‘commanded’

​Facial expressions used as tags need special care. Examples include ‘laughed’, ‘smiled’, ‘grimaced’ and ‘sneered’. These are best recast as action beats or replaced with simpler speech tags.

​Removing redundant tags will reduce your word count. Recasting showy and illogical tags won’t, but your prose will still be more immersive.

​Action beats are short descriptions that come before, between or just after dialogue. They ground speech in the characters’ environment and can be effective alternatives to speech tags.

They key to effective use is ensuring they amplify dialogue rather than interrupt it.

Think about movies. On the screen, all the actors movements and gestures are visible. Replicating this detail in a novel can be invasive and pull the reader away from what’s being unveiled through the speech.

While action beats are superb backdoors into the emotional space of non-viewpoint characters, the dialogue should be where the main action is taking place. If it’s not, what might be required is a reworking of the dialogue, not the introduction of more action beats.

Instead of mimicking the screen experience, use action beats to show what the dialogue doesn’t convey. That needn’t mean including them with every turn. Great dialogue doesn’t need to be anchored every time a character opens their mouth. A purposeful nudge now and then will be enough.

Watch out in particular for prose that’s overloaded with mundane action beats – legs stretching, fingers raking through hair, raised eyebrows, arms folding, fingers steepling.
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Review your action beats:
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• Do they tell the reader something the dialogue doesn’t or are they mundane details that a reader could imagine?
• Are they infrequent nudges or are they littering the dialogue at every turn of speech?
• Could the mood conveyed by the action beat be conveyed better by improving the dialogue?

Getting rid of the dull and redundant ones will reduce your word count. And what’s left on the page will be more engaging.

There’s nothing wrong with the filter words, speech tags and actions beats. They’re useful tools when they help a reader make sense of the story.

However, if they’re mundane or interruptive clutter that can be assumed, leave them out so we can focus on the words that really matter.

• 3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction
• Author writing resources
• Becoming a Fiction Editor (free booklet for editors)
• Dialogue tags and how to use them in fiction writing
• Editing Fiction at Sentence Level (book for editors and authors)
• Filter words in fiction
• Making Sense of ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ (book for editors and authors)
• Switching to Fiction (course for editors)
• Tips on lean writing
• What are action beats and how can you use them in fiction writing?

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle talk to author David Unger about transforming a novel from print to audio.

​Listen to find out more about

• Doing your own narration vs hiring a pro
• How to find a professional voice artist
• Which qualities are important
• The process of working with a professional narrator
• Obstacles to creating audio books
• Costs and time frame

Here's where you can find out more about David Unger's books.

Dig into these related resources

• Author resources
• Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
• The Editing Podcast: 6 ways to use audio for book promotion
• ​Booklet: How to narrate your own audio book
• Podcast episodes: The indie author collection
• Blog post: Why editors and proofreaders should be using audio
• Blog post: 5 ways to use audio for book marketing and reader engagement
• Blog post: How to go mobile with audio: Book-editor podcasting on the go

Music Credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/​

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, ​Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle talk to mystery writer David Unger about story creation and revision.

​Listen to find out more about

• What made David want to start writing and who inspired him
• Writing an alter ego
• The revision process
• On being edited

Here's where you can find out more about David Unger's books.

Dig into these related resources

• Author resources
• Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
  
• Blog post: 3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction
• Blog post: Crime fiction subgenres: Where does your novel fit?
• Blog post: How to write dialogue that pops
• Blog post: Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?
• Blog post: Writing a crime novel – should you plan or go with the flow?​
  
• Podcast episodes: The indie author collection

Music Credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/​

Good news! It is perfectly okay to start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’ in fiction writing. Doing so can enrich narration and dialogue, and inflect the prose with voice, mood and intention. The key is to make sure those conjunctions are being used purposefully and logically. This post shows you how.

What the style guides say
Here's what two industry-recognized style guides have to say on the matter.

New Hart’s Rules (Oxford University Press): ‘You might have been taught that it’s not good English to start a sentence with a conjunction such as and or but. It’s not grammatically incorrect to do so, however, and many respected writers use conjunctions at the start of a sentence to create a dramatic or forceful effect.’

Chicago Manual of Style Online, 5.203 (Chicago University Press): ‘There is a widespread belief—one with no historical or grammatical foundation—that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but, or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice.'

6 good reasons to start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’
Great! We have the go-ahead from a couple of big hitters to use our two conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence. Now let’s dig a little deeper into why doing so can make fiction more effective. Here are my top six reasons:

• To serve natural speech
• To shorten narrative distance
• To introduce tension and suspense
• To add drama
• To emphasize the unexpected
• To make contrast explicit

Serving natural speech
When we speak in real life, conjunctions are often the first things out of our mouths. So it should be in novels that want to render speech authentically.

Fictional dialogue doesn’t replicate real-life speech completely – that would mean including a lot of boring stuff that one might hear at the bus stop. Rather, it’s a sort of hybrid that has the essence of reality but with the mundanity judiciously removed. It might sound like a cheat but readers thank authors who don’t bore them!

Small nudges towards reality help with the authenticity goal, which is where our conjunctions come in handy. Here are a few examples for you:

Shortening narrative distance
Dialogue gives us the character’s speech; narrative gives us the character’s experience. When that’s a first-person narrative, it’s easy to feel close to the narrator. With a third-person narration, the reader can feel separated from the character, as if they’re on the outside looking in.

Authors who want to reduce that space between the reader and the character – called narrative distance or psychic distance – can experiment with a narration style that sounds like natural speech even though it’s not dialogue.
​
Here’s a lovely example from Blake Crouch’s Recursion (p. 182). 

Notice how the narration style is third person, though it doesn’t feel like it. Instead, we’re right inside the viewpoint character’s head.
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The position of the conjunction in this example isn’t the sole reason why the narrative distance feels short – the free indirect speech above and beneath plays a huge part – but it certainly helps to give us a sense of the character’s mentally working out a problem.

Introducing tension and suspense
Take a look at this excerpt from p. 21 of The Matlock Paper by Robert Ludlum.

With that one word – the conjunction – Ludlum stops us in our tracks. Yes, we’re thinking, the town’s neat, it’s clean. All well and good. But then we realize that there’s more to it, for beneath the pruned trees lies a dark underbelly.

The ‘And’, positioned right up front, forces us to pay attention to it. It’s not any old conjunction. Rather, it’s loaded with suspense that drives the reader to ask a question that isn’t explicitly answered: What else is that ‘something’?

Adding drama and modifying rhythm
In this excerpt from Parting Shot (p. 433), the author uses the conjunction at the beginning of the sentence to inject drama into a scene.

The new line makes the rhythm of the prose more staccato, but the ‘And’ at the beginning of the final line is what really packs a punch.

The viewpoint character, Cory, is a killer. He ponders almost matter-of-factly who the threats are, and reaches his conclusion as he closes in on the cabin.

If Linwood Barclay had omitted the conjunction, he’d have introduced a separation between two ideas: realizing what needs to be done, and when the killer is going to do it. Yet these two ideas are very much connected. The ‘And’ therefore fulfils its purpose as a conjunction – a joining word.

But there’s more. If he’d run the two ideas together with a conjunction between (‘It seemed clear what he had to do, and he'd have to do it fast.’), the line would have lost its wallop. The staccato rhythm (one that mirrors the cold calculation taking place in Cory’s head) is gone. Instead, the prose has flatlined; it seems almost mundane, like a stroll in the park rather than the planning of a murder.

However, the ‘And’ reinforces this extra information – the deed must be done fast. The emphasis adds drama to the line. The final line is still connected to the clause it’s related to, but the mood-rich rhythm, and the drama that comes with it, is intact.

Emphasizing the unexpected
An up-front ‘But’ is perfect for the author who want to emphasize the unexpected, surprise or absurdity. Take a look at this excerpt from Terry Pratchett’s Dodger (p. 170).

It’s true that omitting the ‘But’ would leave the meaning intact. However, adding the conjunction reinforces the Dodger’s emotional response to the boy’s suggestion – he’s taken by surprise because in times past, asking a peeler was exactly what he’d have done, without question, without fear.

And so that ‘But’ does more than act as a conjunction. With just three letters, we’re shown character mood.

Making contrast explicit and suspenseful
David Rosenfelt’s New Tricks (p. 92) includes a smashing example how the conjunction at the beginning of the sentence reinforces a contrast with what’s gone before.

That contrast is explicit because the ‘But’ acts as an interrupter. We’re deep in the POV character’s head regarding the murder victim, ruminating with our protagonist. The conjunction then shoves us out of that rumination. It’s not gentle; the ‘But’ is a big one – something’s up with Laurie.

Not that we know what. Rosenfelt doesn’t tell us yet. Instead, he makes us ask the question: Why? And with that question, just as with the Ludlum example above, we have suspense.

Summing up
Feel free to pepper your prose with sentences that begin with ‘And’ and ‘But’. Anyone who tells you you’re on shaky ground grammatically knows less about grammar than you do!

It’s likely that the myth around positioning these conjunctions came about in a bid to nudge people away from stringing together clauses and sentences with no thought to creativity. And while such an intention makes sense, we have to recognize that imposing this zombie rule on writing can actually destroy the magic of prose.

And on that note, I will sign off! (See what I did there?)

More fiction editing guidance

• 3 reasons to use free indirect speech
• Author resources library: Booklets, videos, podcasts and articles for authors
• Commas, conjunctions and rhythm
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Editing Fiction at Sentence Level: My flagship line-editing book
• How to write suspenseful chapter endings
• Rules versus preferences
• Sentence length, pace and tension
• Switching to Fiction: Course for new fiction editors
• Transform Your Fiction guides: My fiction editing series for editors and authors

Cited sources

• At Risk, Stella Rimington, Arrow Books, 2004
• Don’t Let Go, Harlan Coben, Arrow Books, 2017
• Dodger, Terry Pratchett, Corgi, 2012
• Recursion, Blake Crouch, Pan Macmillan, 2019
• The Matlock Paper, Robert Ludlum, Orion, 2010
• The Dream Archipelago, Christopher Priest, Gollancz, 2009
• Parting Shot, Linwood Barclay, Orion, 2017
• New Tricks, David Rosenfelt, Grand Central Publishing, 2009

Want to use grammatical expletives in your fiction? These words serve as place holders or fillers in a sentence. They shift emphasis and can affect rhythm. Used injudiciously, however, they can be cluttering tension-wreckers. Here's how to strike a balance.

Because expletives shift emphasis, they have a syntactic function. However, they don’t in themselves contribute anything to our understanding of the sentence. In other words, they don't have a semantic role. You might also see them called syntactic expletives.

Common examples are:

• there are/is/was/were
• it is/was

Take a look at the following pair. The first sentence is introduced by an expletive.
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• There was a car parked outside the house.
• A car was parked outside the house.

When used well, expletives are enrichment tools that allow an author to play with a narrative voice’s register and the rhythm of sentences. 

When prose is overloaded with them, it can feel cluttered with filler words that add nothing but ink on the page. At best, they widen the narrative distance between the reader and the POV character; at worst, they flatten a sentence and destroy suspense and tension.

Flat expletives that merit fixing
Too much telling of what there is or was can rip the immediacy from a scene and encourage skimming. That’s a problem – it means the reader isn’t engaged and risks missing something.

Furthermore, if they’re not performing their rhythmic or emphasis role, expletives make sentence navigation more difficult because all they're doing is cluttering the prose.

Here's an example. Think I've overworked it? There are published books from mainstream presses with passages just like this made-up one.

The problem with the expletives in the passage above is that readers are bogged down in what there was rather than the viewpoint character's experience of discovery. Let's revise it to fix the problem.

Notice how the narrative distance has been reduced in the revised passage. Now it's as if we're in the viewpoint character's head, moving with her second by second. We can focus on the room, the dried-blood fingermarks, the whimper, and the scream rather than the being of those things – their was-ness. 

Removing the expletives and swapping in stronger verbs (smudged, shattered) enables us to tighten up the prose and introduce immediacy. And now there's no need for the told 'suddenly' – we experience the suddenness through the in-the-moment shattering. 

Expletives that pack a punch
As is always the case, obliterating expletives from a novel would be inappropriate because sometimes they're the perfect tool to help out with rhythm and emphasis.

The opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (p. 1) uses expletives galore, and masterfully at that. The repetition (anaphora) brings a steady rhythm to the passage that ensures the reader gives equal weight to the contrasting extremes – from best and worst to hope and despair. 

​The expletives introduce a detached sense of reportage that forces us forward rather than allowing us to dwell on any of the heavens or hells on offer. It’s simultaneously mundane and monstrous, and that's why it's magical.

​And here’s an example from Dog Tags (p. 1) where omission of the expletive would rip the energy from the opening first line of the chapter and interfere with our understanding of which words we’re supposed to emphasize.

​Summing up
​Grammatical expletives are a normal part of language and have every right to be in a novel. Overloading can destroy tension and make for a laboured narrative, but a purposeful peppering can amplify character emotion, moderate rhythm, and make space for the introduction of big themes in small spaces without sensory clutter.

Cited works and further reading

• Author resource library (includes links to free webinars)
• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, W. W. Norton & Company; Critical edition, 2020
• Dog Tags, David Rosenfelt, Grand Central Publishing, Reprint edition, 2011 ​
• Editing Fiction at Sentence Level: A Guide for Beginner and Developing Writers
• Making Sense of Punctuation: Transform Your Fiction 2
• ‘Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?’
• ‘Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions’
• 'Should I use a comma before coordinating conjunctions and independent clauses in fiction?'
• ‘What is anaphora and how can you use it in fiction writing?’
• 'Why "suddenly" can spoil your crime fiction'

This post helps less experienced fiction writers and editors make sense of omniscient point of view, and work with this narrative style effectively.

What is narrative point of view?
Point of view (POV) describes whose head we’re in when we read a book ... from whose perspective we discover what’s going on – and the smells, sounds, sights and emotions involved.

Third-person omniscient POV
This viewpoint is probably the trickiest to master. Omniscient means all-knowing. It’s the most flexible because it gives the reader potential access to every character’s external and internal experiences. It also has the potential to be the least intimate if not handled well.
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Imagine a futuristic news helicopter. Inside, our roving reporter shifts her camera from one person to another, and one setting to another. She’s also got some serious kit, stuff that enables her to tap everyone’s phones, TVs and computers. But that’s not all; the characters’ brains are bugged too; our reporter knows what they’re thinking. She can see, hear and smell it all! Says Sophie Playle:

Examples: Deeper knowledge than third-person narration
If you’ve read anything by Neil Gaiman, you’ll see a blatant external narrator in evidence with a depth of knowledge that defies the rules of a third-person viewpoint. Here’s an example from Neverwhere (p. 10). 

The first ten words might appear to be a third-person viewpoint (‘He’ refers to Richard, the protagonist), but that’s not the case. What follows is a distinct narrative other, a voice that explains ‘white knowledge’.

In the second and third paragraphs, the all-knowing narrator offers historical information. Then in the final paragraph, we’re told more about Richard. The viewpoint was never third-person objective. It was omniscient all along.

In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, ‘the man’ takes centre stage in most of the sections such that we see what he sees and feel what he feels. It’s almost as if he’s the narrator, and once more we could be forgiven for thinking the viewpoint third person. But there’s more going on here.
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In the following extracts, notice the shift beyond what it’s possible for the man to see, think or know.

In the first extract, only an all-knowing alternative narrator could be privy to the intent behind the marchers’ colour choice of scarves. In the second, the man watches the army, but it’s only an omniscient narrator who can know where their blades were forged and how the boy is feeling. Maybe that narrator is McCarthy; maybe it’s someone else. But it’s not the man.

Example: World-building backstory in a flash
Some genres – science fiction and fantasy for example – lend themselves well to omniscient narrators because they can provide critical world-building backstory quickly. Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters provides a fine example (pp. 1–2).

What omniscient is not
An omniscient viewpoint can be powerful but it needs to be controlled and used with purpose. If we’re accessing one character’s thoughts and experiences, and we jump to another character’s viewpoint, it can jar the reader. That's called head-hopping.

Imagine you’re listening to your best friend tell you about a difficult experience. Even though it didn’t happen to you, her description of the event helps you to imagine the challenges she faced, the emotions she grappled with. You’re thoroughly immersed and emotionally connected.

Then someone else barges up to you both and tells you what it was like for them. Your friend butts back in to wrestle the telling back to her.
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Would the interruption annoy and frustrate you? Would you feel like your efforts to invest in your friend’s story were being thwarted?

The impact is the same when it occurs in a book’s narrative (though not the dialogue, of course). That viewpoint ping pong is not omniscient POV. It’s third-person limited gone awry.

Recommendation
I recommend caution. The beauty of fiction often lies in the unveiling, in the immersion. Overuse of an omniscient narrator can block this. 

The all-seeing eye can be a powerful tool – as demonstrated by the examples above – but less experienced authors, particularly those writing commercial fiction such as thrillers and mysteries, risk accidental head-hopping, which will destroy the tension and distance the reader from the characters.

Cited sources and related reading​​

• Editing Fiction at Sentence Level, Louise Harnby, Panx Press, 2020
• Making Sense of Point of View (Transform Your Fiction series: 1), Louise Harnby, Panx Press, 2020
• Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman, William Morrow Paperbacks, reprint edition, 2016
• Resources for authors: Library of articles, podcasts, videos and booklets for independent writers
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy, Picador, 2009
• 'What’s the Difference Between Omniscient and Third Person Narration?' Sophie Playle, Liminal Pages​
• 'What is head-hopping?'
• Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett, Harper, reprint edition, 2013

​Not sure where to place your speech tags? This guide shows you how to tell readers who’s speaking, not based on a set of rules but in respect of clarity, suspense, invisibility, and rhythm.

​What is a dialogue tag?
Dialogue tags, or speech tags, are complementary short phrases that tell the reader who’s talking. They’re not always necessary, particularly if there are only two speakers in a scene, but when they are used, this is what they look like:

• ‘Dump that corpse and don’t ever mention it again,’ the hooded guy whispered.
• “Thanks for holding the gun,” Tom said. “Now pull the trigger.”
• Marg turned. Smirked. Said, ‘Tomorrow. If you’re late, he’s late. Geddit?’

Said is often best because readers are so used to seeing it that it’s pretty much invisible and therefore less interruptive.

What’s the rule about where tags go?
Dialogue tags can be placed after, between or before dialogue. Authors sometimes ask which position is best or whether there’s a rule.

There is no rule. All three positions have advantages and disadvantages, depending on what you want to achieve.

Position: After dialogue
Readers are so used to seeing speech tags like said at the end of dialogue that they’re almost invisible. That allows the dialogue, rather than the speaking of the dialogue, to be the focus.

Below is a wee example from Recursion (p. 292). The speech takes centre stage; the doing of speech (screaming, in this case) comes afterwards.
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Furthermore, when the tag comes after the dialogue, it can roll seamlessly into any supporting narrative, as shown in the example from The Ghost Fields (p. 194).

There are a couple of potential disadvantages:
​

• In longer chunks of dialogue in scenes with more than two speakers, the reader will have to wait until the end of the speech to find out who’s saying what.
• Placement at the end of speech can flatten a one-liner or suspense point in dialogue.

Position: Between dialogue
Placing speech tags between dialogue is also common and unlikely to jar the reader. Here are three reasons why it works:

• The tag breaks up longer streams of dialogue, which is especially handy if a monologue’s rearing its head.
• We’re given an early indication who’s speaking. If there are more than two speakers in a scene, and the reader’s likely to be confused, placement between the speech is an effective solution.
• One-liners, suspense points and shocks get to take centre stage. Adding the speech tag at the end could flatten the tension.

Here are two examples in which the mid placement of the tag means the suspense isn't interfered with. The first is taken from The Ghost Fields (p. 194); the second is something I made up.

​

In the first example, not having the speech tag at the end of the dialogue focuses the reader on one question: what’s the clue? Not: Frank’s the speaker.

In the second example, rejig the sentence so that Tom said comes after all the speech, and notice how this makes the wallop vanish from the line about pulling the trigger.

Position: Before dialogue
Placement of the tag before the dialogue isn’t a no-no but it is a less common option and more noticeable.

A tag tells of speaking; dialogue shows character voice, mood and intention. When the speaker’s announced first, it’s a tap on the shoulder that draws attention to speaking being done. It expands what author and creative-writing expert Emma Darwin calls the ‘psychic distance’ between the reader and the speaker, which can flatten the mood.

And, yet, this can also be its advantage. That tap introduces a more staccato rhythm that can stop a reader in their tracks.
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In this extract from Recursion (p. 292), the placement of the tag before the dialogue induces an acute sense of resignation – that dull thump in the pit of one’s stomach when the proverbial’s hit the fan.

Not placing tags: Omission
There’s no need to include a speech tag if it’s adding nothing but clutter. In the following example from Recursion (p. 125), the author has omitted them because there are only two speakers. He lets the dialogue, and its punctuation, inject the voice, mood and intention into the scene rather than telling us who’s speaking and how they’re saying it.

Summing up
​Placement of dialogue tags isn’t about rules. It’s about purpose:
​

• Varying rhythm
• Respecting mood and suspense
• Clarifying who’s speaking
• Avoiding unnecessary clutter

For that reason, mixing up the position of speech tags can be effective.

​Let’s end with an extract from Out of Sight (pp. 135–7), which demonstrates the varied ways in which author Elmore Leonard handles his tagging: beginning, between, end, and omission.

Cited sources and further reading

• Editing Fiction at Sentence Level, Louise Harnby, Panx Press, 2020
• How to Punctuate Dialogue (free webinar)
• Out of Sight, Elmore Leonard, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017
• Recursion, Blake Crouch, Pan, 2020
• The Ghost Fields, Elly Griffiths, Quercus, 2015

Not sure what a second-person narrative point of view is, or how to use it effectively in your fiction writing? This post shows you how it works in a novel.

What is narrative point of view?
Point of view (POV) describes whose head we’re in when we read a book ... from whose perspective we discover what’s going on – and the smells, sounds, sights and emotions involved.

There can be multiple viewpoints in a book, not all of which have to belong to a single character. Plus, editors’ and authors’ opinions differ as to which approach works best, and what jars and why.

My aim is to keep the guidance as straightforward as possible, not because I think you should only do it this way or that way, but because most people (myself included) handle complexity best when they start with the foundations.

Second-person narrative viewpoint
In second-person narrative POVs, the pronoun is ‘you’. This narration is intimate, but strangely so, as if the author is talking directly to the reader as a character.

That intrusive element is both its strength and its weakness. It’s powerful because it places readers at the heart of the story, and yet we – the ‘you’ – know less than the narrator.

That can create a sense of immediacy, but almost amnesiac dislocation. We have to discover what we think, see, know and do. And if we don’t identify with the ‘you’ – if we feel implicated rather than attached – we can be pulled out of the story rather than brought deeper into it.

Still, this controlling aspect of second person can have an advantage. Whereas first-person narrators tell you what they thought and did, second-person narrators tell us what we thought and did.

This witnessing adds a level of reliability (even if we don’t like it). And readers aren’t daft. They know they’re not really the you-character, which means authors could use it as a tool to create surprise when the ‘you’ is unveiled later in the book.

If you want your readers to feel connected but controlled, second-person POV might be just the ticket, but it’s difficult to pull off and rare that authors of contemporary commercial fiction write an entire novel in it (though check out Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins if you want to see a good example in action). 

More likely, you’ll see shorter-form use: dedicated chapters or other narrative forms such as diary entries, letters or other missives.

Example: Curiosity, reliability and the complicit reader
In this example from Complicity (p. 9), Iain Banks uses the second-person viewpoint in which a narrator reports on the actions and thoughts of an unnamed serial killer addressed as ‘you’.

Think about how you feel as you read this. It’s as if you’re being addressed, as if you’re complicit. At the very least, the prose arouses curiosity – who is this ‘you’, and how is it that the narrator knows so much about them?

Banks doesn’t present the novel fully in second person; these sections fall between those of a first-person viewpoint character, journalist Cameron Colley. As such, readers are confronted by a juxtaposition of Cameron’s version of events and what was witnessed by the narrator.

Recommendation
By all means, experiment with second-person point of view but understand its implications. If you want to draw your reader into the heart of your story, it’s a good choice. However, that connection can come at a price – a lack of control that could alienate your audience.

For that reason, consider the purpose of this narrative style and the extent to which you employ it. It might be better constrained – limited to chapters inhabited by specific viewpoint characters.

If in doubt, rewrite your scene in an alternative narrative viewpoint so you can evaluate how this affects your perception of the story as a reader.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise talk to Barry Award-nominated thriller writer John A. Connell about moving from Berkley (Penguin USA) to independent publishing.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 12

• RATE AND REVIEW

Listen to find out more about:

• Being a Hollywood camera operator ... Jurassic Park, Thelma and Louise, and NYPD Blue
• Getting a publishing contract with a major press
• The Mason Collins series
• When publishers are no longer invested
• Moving to independent publishing
• Clawing back book rights
• Using movie experience to craft a novel's scene
• Beyond writing: what indie publishers need to do
• Challenges and benefits of indie publishing
• Being edited
• Useful organizations
• Writing a series versus standalone novels
• Future projects

Top tips From John

• Build a mailing list
• Offer a free short story or novella
• Develop a series
• Use Facebook ads
• Craft a great website
• Engage with your audience
• Get your business head on
• Invest in appropriate editing

Contact John A. Connell
Subscribe to John's newsletter and get a free book:

• Website: John A Connell: Gripping Thrillers With a Historical Twist
• Email: john@johnaconnell.com
• Facebook author page
• John's books on Amazon US and UK

Editing bites

• Stephen King (video): Masterclass, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 2012
• Joanna Penn: Video marketing for authors
• Mark Dawson's Self-Publishing Formula
• International Thriller Writers
• Mystery Writers of America
• Mark Dawson's Self-Publishing Formula

​​
Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise discuss whether working with a specialist editor is necessary for all books and every type of editing.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 8

Listen to find out more about:

• Fiction versus non-fiction
• The type of editing
• Subject/genre

Editing bites and other resources

• Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing), Jack Hart
• ‘The Secrets of Story Structure’, KM Weiland
• The Editing Podcast, S1E1: The different levels of editing
• Switching to Fiction (online course for aspiring fiction editors)
• Research tools for crime and thriller writers (blog post)
• Consulting Cops

​Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise chat about 18 blogs for authors and editors that offer guidance on various aspects of writing craft.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 7

Listen to find out more about:

• ALLi blog: Alliance of Independent Authors
• Ann Handley blog
• Articles: The Writer’s Digest
• Articles: Tim Storm, Storm Writing School
• Bacon Editing blog: Claire Bacon
• Bookbaby blog
• Clarity: Lisa Poisso, Editor and Book Coach
• Denise Cowle Editorial Services blog: Denise Cowle
• Helping Writers become Authors: KM Weiland
• Jane Friedman blog
• LibroEditing blog: Liz Dexter
• Liminal Pages blog: Sophie Playle, Fiction Editor
• The Creative Penn blog: Joanna Penn
• The Editor’s Blog: Beth Hill
• The Itch of Writing: Emma Darwin
• The Editing Blog: Louise Harnby, Fiction Editor
• The Radical Copyeditor blog: Alex Kapitan
• The Subversive Copyeditor blog: Carol Saller

Editing bites and other resources

• ​Cult Pens
• Stein on Writing, by Sol Stein, Non Basic Stock Line, 2007

​
Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

This post helps less experienced authors and editors understand how a third-person narrative viewpoint works in fiction, and the differences between objective and limited.

What is narrative point of view?
Point of view (POV) describes whose head we’re in when we read a book ... from whose perspective we discover what’s going on – and the smells, sounds, sights and emotions involved.

Third-person limited POV
Along with third-person objective, this viewpoint is the one that most writers find easiest to master at the beginning of their journey. Furthermore, readers are used to encountering it in contemporary fiction. The pronouns of choice are ‘she’, ‘he’, ‘it’ and ‘they’.

Third-person limited is so called because it’s a deeper viewpoint that limits readers to a single character’s experience – what they see, hear, feel and think. Readers get to sit in their skin and that provides an immersive experience. It’s as if we’re them.

Example: Intimacy and getting under the character’s skin
Here are some examples from Mick Herron, Harry Brett and Louise Penny that demonstrate an intimate third-person limited narrative:

The voices are distinctive. It’s not just dialogue that conveys how the viewpoint characters speak and think; it’s the narrative too.

However, it’s called third-person limited for a reason. Strictly speaking, what that character can’t see or know shouldn’t be reported. In the above examples, we’re left with questions – of destination in the first, of the origin of a smell in the second, and of the nature of the journey – because we don’t know any more than the viewpoint characters.

Third-person limited is effective because an author doesn’t want to give everything away at once. The limitations over what can be known, and therefore divulged, allow the writer to control the unveiling of information via the viewpoint character.

Recommendation
I recommend you stick to a single character’s POV per chapter or section to avoid confusion or interruption. Mittelmark and Newman (p. 159) offer this wisdom:

That’s worth heeding. It means the reader’s trust has been lost, that they’ve been pulled out of the story rather than drawn further into it.

Trickier still is narrative ping pong, where within one section we bounce back and forth between the POVs of Character X and Character Y.
​
Here’s a made-up example that demonstrates how things can go wrong.

The problem with this kind of setup is that it ‘alienates the reader from both perspectives. She is unable to identify with either because there’s no telling when it will be yanked away’ (Mittelmark and Newman, p. 161).
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In other words, the reader has been prevented from immersing themselves in the character’s version of the story. When you stay in the head of one character per chapter or section, you make your writing life and your reader’s journey easier.

Third-person objective POV
If third-person limited provides intimacy – allowing us to explore a character’s emotions and hear their voice – third-person objective offers a more neutral flexibility when we need some distance to look around and beyond objectively.

Like its limited sister, writers find this easiest to master and readers are used to encountering it. The pronouns too are ‘she’, ‘he’, ‘it’ and ‘they’.

It’s a useful viewpoint for the author who wants to convey descriptive information – height, weight, facial expression, environment. If you’re using this POV, practice your observation skills so that you understand how people move from place to place, what they wear, where they live, how they gesture, so that you can show what might be going on in their heads through what can be observed.

The same can be said of the objects in your novel. How does light play on water or a brick building at various times of the day? What sounds might be audible in your environment? How do the seasons affect the flora and fauna? 

Third-person objective viewpoints are powerful because they force a writer to show rather than tell what’s being seen. That’s because we don’t have access to the internal thoughts of a character.

Example: A more distant and descriptive narrative
Here’s an example from David Baldacci’s The Fix (p. 3) that demonstrates third-person narration as observable description.

Example: Shown-not-told in action
Here are some excerpts from Stephen King’s The Stand that demonstrate a close attention to the way things and people behave when observed.

​Objectivity allows the writer to explore in detail what would be unnatural for a character to report directly. Remember, we’re not accessing thoughts, opinions and emotions with an objective POV, just the stuff that any onlooker could see, hear or smell. 

Objective is the key word here. Third-person objective viewpoints should focus on what could be known by a narrator witnessing that scene. When information is reported that moves beyond a floating camera that’s tracking the immediate environs and into a space where the narrator knows more than could possibly be witnessed by the character or the onlooker, omniscience is in play (more on that below).

In some genres – crime fiction for example – this can be useful because the reader will be forced to reach their own conclusions as to the reasons for, or motivations behind, a particular event or behaviour. In other words, it’s mysterious.

However, it can be distancing if overused and as a result contemporary commercial fiction writers rarely write entire novels from an objective POV because it’s reportage and we can’t get into the characters’ heads. It’s harder to understand what motivates them unless they express it through dialogue. A blend of limited and objective is a more likely choice.

 Recommendation
 Use third-person objective POV to create suspense, to make your reader wonder, and ask their own questions, and to provide scene-setting information, but blend with a limited viewpoint for deeper emotional engagement.

In the first paragraph of the example below, Baldacci (The Fix, p. 3) uses third-person objective to give us background facts. In the second, he switches to limited to explain the character’s feelings. It’s a lovely fusion:

Cited sources and related reading​​

• A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny, Three Pines Creations, 2011
• How Not to Write a Novel, Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, Penguin, 2009
• The Fix, David Baldacci, Pan Books, 2017
• The Stand, Stephen King, First Anchor Books, mass-market edition, 2011
• What is a first-person narrative point of view?
• What is a second-person narrative point of view?
  
• What is an omniscient narrative point of view?
  
• What is head-hopping?
  
• Making Sense of Point of View (Transform Your Fiction series: 1)
  

When the order of characters’ movements is told with the words ‘before’ and ‘after’, there’s a risk that readers will focus on timeline rather than story. That distraction can reduce engagement and dumb down the writing.

​Here’s what to look out for and how to fix the problem.

In this article, we’ll look at tacit and explicit chronologies of action, and assess which style of writing is more immersive and why.

Why writers include ‘before’ and ‘after’
The inclusion of ‘before’ and ‘after’ to tell the order of play is not an indication of poor grammar – not at all. There’s nothing grammatically wrong with these constructions.

More usually, it’s an indication of insecurity. The author hasn’t learned to trust the power of their words on the page, or the ability of their readers to perceive the meaning behind those words.

It’s also why writers sometimes use several adjectives with similar meanings rather than one strong one, or an adverbial phrase to fortify a weak verb.

Some authors also fear that their writing will come across as too ‘plain’ or ‘simple’. Chronological nudges are an attempt to ornament the prose.

Tacit chronology of action
The things that we do occur in a sequence; they have a chronology. This is as much the case in real life as it is on the screen, in an audiobook and in the pages of a novel. That chronology is tacit – we don’t need to explain it because it’s understood.

Take a look at this excerpt from The Devil’s Dice by Roz Watkins (p. 79, HQ, 2019):

Watkins doesn’t tell us explicitly that the shuddering occurred before the laptop was put down, or that the laptop was moved before the character shifted the cat onto their knee. And yet we know. The sequence of events is implied by the order in which she places each clause. It’s tacit.

• First thing that happens: shudders
• Next thing that happens: moves laptop
• Next thing that happens: manoeuvres cat
• Next thing that happens: leans
• Next thing that happens: inhales cat odour

 
And that’s the thing with strong line craft – it allows the reader to immerse themselves in the chronology of action by showing us, clause by clause, what’s transpiring, instead of tapping us on the shoulder and telling us.

Explicit chronology of action
Let’s recast the Watkins excerpt with some explicit taps on the shoulder:

I see this use of timeline nudges frequently in the fiction writing of less experienced authors, and it’s problematic when overused. Here’s why.

1. Some readers might feel patronized
Not every reader will notice the use of chronology nudges. But some will, and since no author wants to alienate a chunk of their readership, why push the story over a cliff when we can work out the sequence of events from the order of the words?

Telling readers that X was done before doing Y, or after doing Z, is akin to saying: ‘Hey, just in case you’re not clever enough, let me spell it out for you.’

​It’s a dumbing-down that readers in the know won’t appreciate.

2. The inclusion is unnecessary
If you’re still not convinced, ask yourself whether the inclusion of ‘before’ or ‘after’ as timeline nudges is necessary. It often isn’t.

If a character’s shuddering occurs at the beginning of a sentence, the reader will assume that shuddering is what’s happening right now. If a new action follows that shuddering, the reader will assume that – just like in real life – the moment has passed and something else is happening in the new now of the novel.

3. The reader is focused on the wrong thing
When writers create immersive fiction, the reader feels as if they are in the moment – this is happening, now that, now the other.

‘Before’ and ‘after’ are distractions that focus the reader on when rather than what’s happening. The former is telling; the latter is showing.

4. There are more words than are necessary
Not enough words leaves readers hungry for clarity. Too many gives them indigestion. The artistry comes in the form of balance.

​As long as the sequence of events can be understood by the reader, consider whether timeline nudges such as ‘before’ and ‘after’ are cluttering your prose.

The power of tacit chronology – more examples
Take a look at these pairs of narrative text, each of which has a shown tacit chronology and an alternative told explicit sequence. Which versions are more suspenseful? Which are most immediate? Which flow better when you read them out loud?
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I’ve used examples from published fiction for the tacit versions, and taken a little artistic licence – altering them in ways their authors never intended – for the explicit chronologies.

In the original version, the ‘and’ between the initial breath and the walk into the kitchen is a fine example of the power of a conjunction. It’s almost invisible, which gives us the space to take that breath with the viewpoint character. And having taken it, we’re ready to go into the kitchen with them.

In the edited version, ‘before’ pulls us away from that moment. The tension has fallen out of the sentence.

In the original version, it’s as if we’re in the room, watching the man as he smiles and leans back. There is space for that action to have its moment. Then he blows the smoke – that’s the new moment; we’ve left the other behind.

In the edited version, ‘after’ shoves us past the leaning back and smiling before we’ve had a chance to savour it. It’s already gone, even though we’re still reading about it.

​In the original version, Crichton shows us the action. Perhaps, like me, you can hear the chunter of the helicopter blades in the air. Who’s in this helicopter? Men in uniform. They jump out. What will happen next? We’re shown: they fling open the door. There’s a sense of order, of clandestine and militaristic precision.

In the edited version, ‘before’ saps the suspense from the final sentence. We’re focused on the timeline rather than the action.

Summing up
The table below summarizes the impact of tacit and explicit chronology on prose.

Take a look at your narrative. If ‘before’ and ‘after’ are telling rather than showing, recast gently and reread out loud. Is the order of play still clear? Is the prose more immersive? If so, there’ll be fewer words but what’s there will be all the richer.
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And if you’re worried that your prose will be too plain, think again. Immersive writing allows the reader to decorate the story with their own imagination.

If your characters’ intention to act is trumping their action, a small recast could be in order. This article shows you how ‘to’ can affect immediacy and plausibility in certain circumstances.

The intention to act
Take a look at these sentences:
​

1. Jan reached up to switch on the light. The attic was empty. Almost.
2. Andrew picked up the phone to call Carla. She answered on the third ring.
3. I get out of the car to walk towards the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.

What’s noticeable in these examples is that the character does X in order to achieve Y. Let’s be clear – there’s nothing wrong with any of the sentences in terms of either grammar or syntax. A proofreader wouldn’t touch them. A line editor, however, would take a closer look.
​
In all three cases the narrator is describing the intention to act, rather than the act itself. And that can be problematic for a couple of reasons.
​

• The action is where our attention is supposed to be. That’s how we move through the story at the same pace as the viewpoint character. When intention creeps in instead, the narrative distance – how close the reader feels to the story and the viewpoint character’s place within it at a given moment – widens. The narrative is less immediate.
• We need the action if the prose is to retain its plausibility. It’s essentially a question of logic and whether the infinitive form of the verb allows us to move from A to B.

Removing ‘to’
Now look at what happens when we remove the ‘to’, introduce a conjunction and tweak the conjugation.
​

1. Jan reached up and switched on the light. The attic was empty. Almost.
2. Andrew picked up the phone and called Carla. She answered on the third ring.
3. I get out of the car and walk over to the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.

In (1), now we’re moving through the story with Jan. She acts and we go with her. We feel closer to her, as if we are her. In the unedited example, she discovers the empty attic and yet the light never got switched on – all we had was her intention to do it. The ‘and’ fixes that problem.

In (2), Andrew picked up a phone and made a call. We’re doing those things with him. And Carla can now answer on the third ring because Andrew made a call, rather than just picking up the phone with the intention of getting in touch with her.

In (3), readers are focused on my journey to the caravan, not the reason why I get out of the car (to walk over to the caravan). And now that I do walking rather than just car-exiting, I can get to that caravan and peek through the window.

Shown prose versus told prose – which to choose
This problematic use of infinitives can be framed in terms of showing and telling. There’s room for both in any story, but, as always, context is everything.

Here are three points to bear in mind when deciding whether to ditch your ‘to’ and recast.

• An infinitive tells us why. A conjunction + verb shows us how.
• An infinitive holds us still – it’s motivation-based. A conjunction + verb shows us movement – it’s action-based.
• An infinitive tells us about what’s impending. A conjunction + verb shows us what’s happening in the now.

Conjunctions aren’t the only option. There are other ways of fixing told motivation-based prose where action is what the author really wants to convey. Let’s revisit one of our earlier examples. Each recast has a slightly different mood, but the ‘to’ has been ditched.
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• I get out of the car and walk over to the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.
• I get out of the car, walk over to the caravan, peek through the plastic window. The curtains are open. No one’s home.
• I get out of the car. Walk over to the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.

Red flags – words and phrases to watch out for
What we mustn’t do is hunt out every example of an infinitive verb form and hit the DELETE button. That would be catastrophic. Instead, during the revision process, check what the following words and phrases are doing to your prose.
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• in an attempt to [verb]
• in order to [verb]
• so as to [verb]
• to [verb]

Are they showing motivation or impending action? Is that what you want? And will the logic hold up?

‘To’ and viewpoint drops
Infinitives can also interfere with point of view. In this case, it’s not immediacy at stake but what it’s possible for the viewpoint character to know.

Take a look at these examples:

1. I jump over the wall and land on the soft verge. Dan’s German shepherd greets me. The dog bares its teeth, preparing to bite.
2. Matty. The guy was a pain, had done nothing but hold her back all day. Denise shoved him hard in the back. He grabbed the side of the boat to steady himself.

​In (1), I’m the viewpoint character. All is well until I meet the dog. It bares its teeth. We’re still good. But then the infinitive slips in, and with it I’m now privy to the dog’s intention – to bite. It’s a step too far. Perhaps the dog’s been trained to snarl. Maybe it’s more a warning than an impending attack.

The scene could demand I get bitten or escape intact. Either way, what matters is that we’re not in the dog’s head so we can’t know its intention. A recast that shows what happens, rather than telling what might, is in order.

• The painful version: The dog bares its teeth, leaps forward and clamps its jaw around my arm, puncturing the skin.
• The injury-free version: I jump over the wall and land on the soft verge. Dan’s German shepherd greets me. The dog bares its teeth and I freeze. It backs off, so I give it a wide berth and trot down the road.

In (2), Denise is the viewpoint character. We have access to her thoughts via the free indirect discourse: The guy was a pain ... That Matty grabbed the side of the boat is fine. In fact, it’s a solid example of shown prose because although we don’t have access to his intentions or motivations (because we’re not in his head) we can make a good guess at what they are from his observable action – grabbing the side of the boat.

The infinitive tells us why he grabbed the side of the boat. And that’s a problem because we can’t know; we’re not in his head. All we can do is see through Denise’s eyes. Yes, it’s likely that he’s steadying himself, but why not let the reader do the work? His actions are enough to show them.

A recast might go like this:

• Matty. The guy was a pain, had done nothing but hold her back all day. Denise shoved him hard in the back and he grabbed the side of the boat.

Or this more staccato version:
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• Matty. The guy was a pain, had done nothing but hold her back all day. Denise shoved him hard in the back. He grabbed the side of the boat.

​When intention is the intention!
There are times when the infinitive form of a verb is a good choice because intention, purpose or desire is exactly what the author wants to convey, not the action itself.

Here’s an excerpt from Nuala Ellwood’s Day of the Accident (Penguin, 2019, p. 94). The viewpoint character intends to talk but the action never happens. We’re supposed to focus on the intention, so the infinitives – to speak, to defend myself – work.

​Here are some additional (made-up) examples of where motivation is the order of the day. The character does X for the purpose of achieving Y, and the infinitive is effective.
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• I take deep breaths to calm myself.
• He’d worked his backside off with this parole officer to stay out of trouble.
• Arthur went to pull Excalibur from the stone but Merlin’s scream stopped him in his tracks.
• I’ve made a decision. I’ll fill up her petrol tank with diesel to trash the engine. That’ll teach her.

​Summing up
If you want your characters to act, show those actions in your prose rather than telling readers about intention. Replace the infinitives with a conjunction and modify how the verb’s conjugated. Or, for a more staccato feel, try commas, or closing the sentence with a full point and starting a new one.

If it’s motivation you want, a ‘to’ plus a verb has the right to stand.

You have a choice when it comes to tense in your fiction’s narrative. Here’s an overview of the tenses you’ll most likely be working with, and some guidance on the benefits and challenges of each.

The present tense
Here’s an overview of the present tense, with basic examples:

• Simple present: I write a novel; he writes a novel
• Present progressive (also called present continuous): I am writing a novel; he is writing a novel
• Present perfect: I have written a novel; he has written a novel
• Present perfect progressive: I have been writing a novel; he has been writing a novel

The present is immediate, and that right-nowness forces the reader to stick close to the viewpoint character. We’re in the moment with them. That’s why it appeals to some fiction authors, and why others find it restrictive.
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With second-person viewpoints, the present tense is intensely voyeuristic, invasive even. Here’s an excerpt from Iain Banks’s Complicity (p. 60). This is a transgressor narrative with a difference – the narrator is anonymous, at least until later in the novel:

And in this example from a later chapter (p. 90), we’re back with the protagonist. Here, the main narrative tense is present. The viewpoint is first-person:

RECOMMENDATION
​The present tense is great if you want to shorten the distance between the reader and the viewpoint character. 

Present tense works particularly well for short fiction because space is limited. I use it often in my own shorts and flashes because it enables me to pack an immersive punch quickly. 

However, it’s tricky to manage if there are multiple viewpoint-character chapters or sections, all operating in the present tense. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the timelines so that the reader’s clear on what ‘now’ really means. If your plot twist hinges on deliberately duping them via your use of tense rather than story craft, you’ll break their trust.

The present tense can also be tiring for readers because it’s emotionally immersive. If you’re writing a novel, you might consider using it only for certain viewpoint characters – your transgressor or victim, for example.

In Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh mixes it up: the Anna-viewpoint chapters are set in first-person present; the Murray-viewpoint chapters are third-person past. 

The past tense
Now let’s turn to the past tense, starting with some basic examples:

• Simple past: I wrote a novel; he wrote a novel
• Past progressive: I was writing a novel; he was writing a novel
• Past perfect: I had written a novel; he had written a novel
• Past perfect progressive: I had been writing a novel; he had been writing a novel
• Habitual past: I would write a chapter every week; he would write a chapter every week; I used to write a chapter every week; he used to write a chapter every week

The past tense is the choice of most contemporary commercial fiction writers. What’s interesting is that readers are so used to this style that they can still immerse themselves in a past-tense narrative as though the story is unfolding now.

Here’s an excerpt from T. M. Logan’s 29 Seconds (p. 73). We’re given a past-tense narrative with a third-person limited viewpoint (Sarah’s):

WHEN PAST TENSE FLOPS – UNDERSTANDING PAST PERFECT​
​Less experienced writers can end up in a pickle when referencing events that happened earlier than their novel’s now.

The crucial thing to remember is that when we set a novel in the past tense, anything that happens in the story’s past will likely need the past perfect, at least when the action is introduced.

Here’s an excerpt from The Wife Between Us (p. 57) by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. This chapter’s primary narrative tense is past (see underlined verb):

When we’re told that ‘She stood’, that’s the novel’s now. But when the narrator recalls events that happened further back in time (bold) – Samantha’s decorating her bed, and the two women’s procuring a rug – these need to be anchored in the past-perfect tense: had, had been.

When authors fail to anchor past events in a novel whose now is already set in the past tense, the reader will be confused.

RENDERING BYGONE ROUTINE – UNDERSTANDING HABITUAL PAST
Now and then, you might want to reference events from your novel’s past that happened routinely or habitually. This is where the habitual past tense comes into play, and the tools are would and used to.

This excerpt from The Templar's Garden by Catherine Clover illustrates the usage. The narrative is set in third-person past but the viewpoint character is recalling regular journeys taken earlier in her life:

And in Time To Win (p. 62), Harry Brett uses the simple past and past progressive for the most part, but then Frank, the viewpoint character, recalls something he’d done habitually in former times: