5 tips on how to introduce backstory to crime fiction

16/6/2025

Backstory helps readers understand why characters act the way they do and what their motivations are. This post offers five tips on how to introduce it so that it enriches, rather than distracts from, the main story.

In this post ...

Read on to find out more about:

what character backstory is
drip feeding the information
using natural dialogue
interjecting with narrative reflection
using other characters to reveal backstory
using sounds, objects or settings as triggers

What is character backstory?

Backstory is the fictional history of a character before the main plot begins. It could include past events, relationships, traumas or achievements that shape their present behaviour and decisions. Backstory should be:

Interesting to the reader: It should engage us. Dull or generic backstory risks slowing the pace of the story without adding anything memorable.
Relevant to the scene: It should be introduced at points where it helps readers make sense of what’s happening in a particular scene, otherwise it will feel like dislocated filler.
Purposeful to the story: It should serve the story and help readers make sense of a character’s actions and choices.
Tightly conveyed: It should provide just enough information to enhance the story. Too much backstory could turn into an information dump that encourages readers to scan over it.

To ensure you hit the mark, think about which of the following mechanisms might work best for your novel.

1. Drip feed the information

Think of backstory as the seasoning rather than the main dish. It can be tempting to give readers everything you want them to know about the past in a dedicated and detailed chapter. However, this comes with risk. Your reader, who’s itching to move forward and find out what’s going to happen next, is forced backwards.

The focus is no longer on the now of the novel, but on a different time and space. That in itself can be distracting.

Plus, by giving readers all this backstory in one fell swoop, you could lose the opportunity to introduce suspense, mystery or intrigue.

Instead of an information dump, try instead a brief but telling reference that’s related to the current action.

For example, if your character’s past involves an event that’s made them mistrustful of small spaces, you could hint at this in the narrative, but explain it more fully in a piece of dialogue later on. Here’s how that might look at first mention. The backstory nudge is in bold.

Baz legged it towards the market square but took the long way, avoiding the alley. Too dark. Too small. He’d never make that mistake again, not after last time.
Ten minutes later he was by the fountain, its mist on his face, the warm glow of festoon lights overhead. He ditched his cap, shook off his jacket and turned it inside out, then melted into the crowd. Just another tourist.

This way, you’re revealing backstory in smaller chunks – ones that invite the reader to think: What happened last time he went into a dark alley?

This builds suspense and leaves readers with questions that you can answer later. And for now, the reader stays in the moment with Baz, running towards the square and finding safety in the crowd.

2. Use natural dialogue

Dialogue can be a superb way of unveiling backstory. Depending on when it comes up, you can drip feed or go into more detail.

The key is to ensure that it sounds natural rather than being a convenient tool. For example, if Marcus already knows about Baz’s fears, the following will feel overworked. The dialogue is for the reader’s benefit only, not what these two people might actually say to each other.

*** AVOID ***

‘You’re late,’ Marcus said, tapping his watch. ‘I was expecting you five minutes ago.’
‘I came the long way,’ Baz said. ‘After that incident in November 2024 where I was left for dead in a dark alleyway, I’ve not felt able to take the risk.’
Marcus nodded. ‘Yes, I remember the doctor saying you might not make it, that the seventy-three stiches in your head were only a surface indication of the trauma beneath. And your recovery took ... remind me how long it was.’
‘Seven months,’ Baz said.

This kind of dialogue-for-convenience is sometimes referred to as maid-and-butler dialogue. To avoid it, try something like the following instead.

‘You’re late,’ Marcus said, tapping his watch. ‘I was expecting you five minutes ago.’
‘I came the long way,’ Baz said. ‘Avoided the alley. After, you know, last time, I couldn’t bear—’
‘You need to find a way past that, mate. Let bygones be bygones. I get it, but all you’re doing is turning one risk into another.’

Again, this version hints at a traumatic event in the past, but leaves an intriguing space for more to be revealed later.

3. Interject with narrative reflection

If the time has come to reveal more, you could use the space between the dialogue to offer a little more insight.

Take care to restrain it. Give the reader just enough, then pull them back to the present action. Here’s how that might look.

‘You’re late,’ Marcus said, tapping his watch. ‘I was expecting you five minutes ago.’
‘I came the long way,’ Baz said. ‘Avoided the alley. After, you know, last time, I couldn’t bear—’
‘Yeah yeah. Look, you need to find a way past that, mate. I get it, but all that’s doing is turning one risk into another.’
Easy for Marcus to say. He hadn’t been left for dead, beaten to a pulp, the seventy-three stiches transforming his scalp into something Picasso would have been proud of. Seven months he’d been laid up for. Seven—
‘Hey, earth to Bazza. C’mon. Let’s get a pint. I’ve got a plan.’
Marcus took him by the elbow and steered him through the crowd. It began to rain. An umbrella snapped open above his head.

4. Use other characters to reveal backstory

You could decide to hint at a character’s backstory through how others see them. Again, readers should be given only what they need to know, and the reveal should be relevant to the scene.

Fi touched the screen. ‘So this is our route out. I don’t like it. See here? This alley is tight. No lights. Baz might be on his own, and we both know Baz doesn’t do confined spaces … at least he hasn’t done for the past eighteen months.’
‘That’s our route out,’ Marcus said. ‘You and me. Baz is leaving through the front door, in plain sight. I’ve got it all worked out.’

Notice how we’re given a nudge about something in Baz’s past that means alternative arrangements have to be made. These add a little complexity to the plan Fi and Marcus are working on, but there’s space to explore in more detail at a later point.

If it’s time to introduce that extra detail, an alternative could see Marcus reflecting internally on a plan he’s put together. Here, the backstory is more detailed but it’s still relevant to the present issue that he’s focusing on – planning an escape.

The obvious route out was the alley. Through the kitchen, into the yard, over the wall, and they’d be gone. Two minutes tops. In theory it was good. In practice it was risky. Not for him and Fi. They were sound. But Baz would need to keep his head in the game. And for the past eighteen months, it hadn’t been. His friend had been ambushed, beaten to a pulp, the seventy-three stiches transforming his scalp into something Picasso would have been proud of. Since then, even the suggestion of a tight, unlit space had him going off on one.
Back to the drawing board.

5. Use sounds, objects or settings as triggers

The external environment can be effective tools with which to introduce backstory. Your protagonist might see, hear or touch something that triggers a memory or an emotion.

Here are two examples. Once more, they’re mere nudges that make the reader ask questions, rather than lengthy explanations that risk flattening the prose.

There was a door to his left. Baz opened it. A narrow flight of wooden steps led downwards. He flicked the switch by the latch. A light flashed on, then fizzled and died. He stepped back and shut the door. Shuddered. Too dark, too tight. Not happening.
Anyway, Marcus was due in ten minutes. He could investigate.

Fi ran her hand over the cracked porcelain sink. Same kind they’d had in the safehouse in Rotterdam. Good times. Her, Marcus and Baz. All in it together. All of them with their heads in the game. All of them thinking they were invincible.
‘Fi, join me.’ It was Marcus, his muffled voice coming from somewhere beneath her.
‘He’s down there,’ Baz said, pointing over his shoulder at a roughly hewn slatted door, slightly ajar. ‘Some sort of cellar, I think.’

Summing up

Backstory is as a tool that gives your crime fiction and its characters emotional depth at any point it’s introduced. If it doesn’t affect how the reader engages with the story in the moment, remove it.

Keep it taut so that the reader remains engrossed in the novel’s present – what the characters are doing/feeling now. Nudges and hints at first mention are often far more suspenseful and intriguing.

If backstory is dragging on for multiple paragraphs or even chapters – a within-novel biography – rethink its structure and how you might break it up so that you reveal it gradually.

Other resources you might like

Start Crime Fiction Editing: multimedia course
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

About Louise

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: X @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

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Fiction lingo: 5 character roles and their purpose

10/7/2024

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Find out about 5 core character roles within a novel, and how the purpose they serve ensures the story stays focused.

Summary of Episode 129

Listen to find out more about:

5 key character roles in fiction
The character role hierarchy
Why protagonists aren't always heroes
Why antagonists aren't always villains
Why even minor characters should have a function
How understanding the hierarchy helps authors and editors give appropriate head-space to the appropriate characters

Related resources

Style Sheets for Fiction Editing
How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report
Narrative Distance
How to Line Edit for Suspense
Switching to Fiction
Editing Fiction at Sentence Level

Support The Editing Podcast

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Music credit

'Vivacity’ by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4593-vivacity
Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: X @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

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Scene technique: Fiction editing advice from Lisa Poisso

29/5/2024

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Learn about scene technique with special guest, editor, book coach and story consultant Lisa Poisso. A must-listen for editors and authors alike.

Summary of Episode 126

Listen to find out more about:

What is a scene in a novel?
Why are scenes important? What’s their purpose?
Is there an ideal structure for a scene? Which components should be evident?
Common problems with scene technique
Tools that help authors overcome scene-technique problems

Resources mentioned in the show

K.M. Weiland’s Complete Guide to Scene Structure at Helping Writers Become Authors
K.M. Weiland’s book: Structuring Your Novel
K.M. Weiland’s companion workbook

Find out more about Lisa Poisso

Email: [email protected]
Website
Blog
Newsletter: The Writes of Fiction
Scene Accelerator coaching
Get added to the Scene Accelerator coaching waitlist: [email protected]

Related resources

Dialogue resource centre
Editing Fiction at Sentence Level (book)
Fiction editing courses
How to Edit Slurs in Dialogue (multimedia online course)
How to Punctuate Dialogue (multimedia online course)
How to Line Edit for Suspense (multimedia online course)
Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors (multimedia online course)
Style Sheets for Fiction Editing (multimedia online course)
Switching to Fiction (multimedia online course)

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

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How to use dialogue snippets as a narrative tool

8/5/2023

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Does your novel’s narrative have several consecutive snippets of dialogue that reflect a non-viewpoint character’s state of mind? If so, how do you punctuate them? And is there an alternative to using speech marks?

What’s in this post?

The difference between dialogue and narrative
Using speech snippets as a narrative device
Different styles of punctuation
Using free indirect speech as an alternative
Should the snippets be capitalized?
Keeping the text lean and engaging

The difference between dialogue and narrative

Dialogue is the conversation between two or more characters. It’s what people say out loud and is often indicated by opening and closing quotation marks (or speech marks). Depending on your style of choice, these marks can be either singles ‘blah blah’ or doubles “blah blah”.

Narrative is the telling of the story – how an external narrator or viewpoint character reports on the events taking place in the novel.

In the example below, the dialogue between the characters is in quotation marks. The surrounding text is narrative, and through it we learn what the viewpoint character – Milo – is thinking and what he can see and hear as the journey progresses.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. The country was going to hell in a handcart and they had the audacity to talk about ‘defence of the realm’. Jesus.
The driver turned right at the junction, taking them over the bridge and south of the river.
Milo banged on the glass partition and shouted, ‘Hey, you’ve gone the wrong way, mate. We need to go north.’
‘Don’t worry yourself, sir,’ the driver said, his voice tinny through the intercom. ‘I’ve been told exactly where to take you.’

Note the following:

I’ve used single quotation marks in line with British English-style convention.
Each new speaker’s dialogue starts on a new line.
The full stop after realm sits outside the closing quotation mark because this isn’t direct speech.

Here’s how it might look using US English style:

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. The country was going to hell in a handcart and they had the audacity to talk about “defence of the realm.” Jesus.
The driver turned right at the junction, taking them over the bridge and south of the river.
Milo banged on the glass partition and shouted, “Hey, you’ve gone the wrong way, mate. We need to go north.”
“Don’t worry yourself, sir,” the driver said, his voice tinny through the intercom. “I’ve been told exactly where to take you.”

Note the following:

I’ve used double quotation marks.
Each new speaker’s dialogue starts on a new line.
The full stop after realm sits inside the closing quotation mark.

Using speech snippets as a narrative device

Sometimes the narrative can include snippets of speech to inform readers about a character’s state of mind or a types of behaviours.

Although full sentences are used in the speech snippets, it’s not conventional dialogue. Rather, it’s narrating character’s recollection of utterances that give the reader a flavour of another character’s perspective.

Here’s an example punctuated using British English style. Note the following:

I’ve used single quotation marks in line with British English-style conventions.
Adamson’s speech snippets are not given a new line but incorporated into the narrative.
Commas and a conjunction separate the speech snippets.
Commas and a conjunction separate the speech snippets. These replace any full points that would have appeared if the actual conversation had been reported and rendered as dialogue.
The commas sit outside the speech marks to indicate that this is Milo’s narrative rather than conventional dialogue.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’ and ‘Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians’.

And here’s an example punctuated using US English style, which some people might find a little trickier because of the question mark and the punctuation convention. In the three examples below:

I’ve used double quotation marks in line with US English-style conventions.
Adamson’s speech snippets are not given a new line but incorporated into the narrative.
Commas and a conjunction separate the speech snippets. These replace any full points that would have appeared if the actual conversation had been reported and rendered as dialogue.
Most of the commas still sit inside the speech marks as per US English style. The tricky bit is deciding what to do with the snippet containing a question mark.

Option 1: Allow the question mark to do the separating

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that “It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap,” “Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?” “Got to look after our own, you know,” and “Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians.”

Option 2: Recast so that the snippet with a question mark is at the end of the sentence

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that “It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap,” “Got to look after our own, you know,” “Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians,” and “Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?”

Option 3: Add a separating comma after the closing quotation mark to emphasize the separation

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that “It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap,” “Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?”, “Got to look after our own, you know,” and “Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians.”

If you’re an editor who doesn’t have the scope to suggest a recast, I think Option 1 is fine. The question mark acts in place of a separating comma and avoids cluttering punctuation.

Option 3 indicates a clear separation but it’s a break from US-English style and clutters the paragraph with a comma that isn’t strictly needed.

Using free indirect speech as an alternative

Free indirect speech (also called free indirect discourse) is an alternative that could work for writers worried about getting tangled up in how to punctuate snippets of direct speech in narrative.

Free indirect speech reads like direct first person dialogue but retains a third-person viewpoint. Here’s how it might work in our example.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that it was all about the defence of the realm, old chap, democracy had lost its way, we had to look after our own, and government was best done by our lot, not civilians.

Note how I’ve experimented with just a little italic for emphasis – old chap and our lot.

That’s so that although Milo is reporting the kinds of things he heard his boss say, the reader pays attention to the some of the tone of his boss’s voice and some of the language that Milo finds particularly grating.

Keeping the text lean and engaging

It’s worth paying attention to how many dialogue snippets you’re using. If they’re in a single sentence of the narrative, there’s a risk the prose won’t flow well and the reader will get lost. In the example I provided above, there were four, and that’s probably about the limit.

So what should you do if you’re passing an editorial eye over a sentence with lots of snippets?

Option 1: Can you create the same impact with fewer snippets?
Check whether all those snippets need to be there. Are some of them conveying similar information? If that’s the case, could you retain only those necessary to convey the essence of the character’s thought processes to the reader?

The example below has eight snippets.

During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘The old-boy network has to be protected’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’, ‘The old ways are the best ways’, ‘We know who our friends are’, ‘A little corruption keeps the wet blankets in check’, and ‘Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians’.

Yes, Adamson might have uttered all of those statements, but capturing the essence of his mindset can be still achieved my omitting at least three of them.

I recommend you pick the utterances that are most powerful. That way, you'll ensure your reader remains engaged.

Option 2: Create two sentences from one
If editing out some dialogue snippets isn’t an option, try breaking the sentence into two.

During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘The old-boy network has to be protected’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’, ‘The old ways are the best ways’ … that sort of thing. The bullshit had continued – more of the same on the lines of how ‘We know who our friends are’, ‘A little corruption keeps the wet blankets in check’, and ‘Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians’.

Option 3: Mix up dialogue snippets and free indirect speech
Another option is to combine two different literary tools – direct speech snippets and free indirect speech. Here’s how it might work.

During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘The old-boy network has to be protected’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’, ‘The old ways are the best ways’ … that sort of thing. The bullshit had continued – more of the same about how they knew who their friends were, how a little corruption kept the wet blankets in check (Adamson had winked at that one), and how government was best done by our lot, not civilians.

Again, I experimented with just a little italic to draw attention to Adamson's tone and its grating effect on Milo, and added an action beat in parentheses to highlight Adamson's readiness to break the law.

This option ensures the use of direct speech isn’t overworked, and instead gives the reader a different way to access the information in the narrative about how Adamson’s mind works.

Should the snippets be capitalized?

Whether or not you should capitalize the snippets is a style choice. I've chosen to capitalize them in the examples I provided because I wanted to indicate that this is how these full sentences would have been rendered if we'd been shown the actual conversation as it happened.

If I was dealing with partial dialogue, I'd approach the text as in the next example.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that it was ‘all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, how democracy had ‘lost its way, don’t you think?’, that they had to ‘look after our own, you know’ and government was best done by 'our lot, not civilians’.

Summing up

Using snippets of direct dialogue as a narrative tool can be a superb way of conveying a non-viewpoint character’s mindset and behaviour.

However, writers and their editors need to ensure that readers won’t be tempted to skim. For that reason, pay attention to:

consistent punctuation that supports readability, clarity and style
brevity that captures the essence of the character’s perspective
whether different tools could be combined to make the prose more interesting.

Related resources

Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
Book bundle: Transform Your Fiction series
Courses: The Fiction Line Editing Bundle
Course: How to Line Edit for Suspense
Course: How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report
Course: Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors
Free resources: Dialogue
Free resources: Line craft

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

1 Comment

How to punctuate dialogue broken midstream by an action beat

23/4/2023

1 Comment

Want to know how to punctuate dialogue that’s interrupted midstream by an action beat? This post shows you one way of handling it in your fiction writing and editing practice.

What’s in this post?

What is dialogue?
What is an action beat?
Midstream dialogue interruptions: Using dashes
Which case to use: Upper or lower?
How to avoid using three consecutive punctuation marks

What is dialogue?

Dialogue is the part of a novel that conveys character speech. It’s more usually set off by opening and closing quotation marks (or speech marks).

Depending on your style of choice, these marks can be either singles (‘blah blah’) or doubles (“blah blah”).

It’s more common to see double quotation marks used for books written in US-English style, and single marks used for books written in British-English style, but this is a convention rather than a rule. Consistency is what authors and editors aim for, so make your choice and stick with it.

What is an action beat?

An action beat is a short description that comes before, between or just after dialogue. It assists dialogue by telling readers about how a character interacts with their environment while they’re speaking, and is useful for showing rather than telling readers how a character is feeling.

That’s particularly useful when the narrative style is limited to the perspective of a single viewpoint character, a common and effective style of writing for many commercial fiction authors.

Examples of dialogue with action beats

Below are three examples of character speech. Note how the action beats help ground the character in their environment and help the reader understand how that character is feeling.

In these examples, I’ve placed the action beats in the middle of the dialogue so you can focus on how the various beats I’ve chosen convey different emotions to the reader: frustration in the first, contemplation in the second, and boredom in the third.

‘So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week?’ Louise rolled her eyes. ‘Okay. Let’s make a backup plan.’

‘So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week?’ Louise drummed her fingers on the table. ‘Okay. Let’s make a backup plan.’

‘So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week?’ Louise glanced at the clock and yawned. ‘Okay. Let’s make a backup plan.’

Note that none of these action beats are interrupting the speaker midstream. When they do, the punctuation can become a little more challenging.

Midstream dialogue interruptions: Using dashes

When authors want to interrupt the speech midstream with an action beat, a common approach is to punctuate with parenthetical dashes.

Spaced en dashes (–) are a popular convention in British-English style.
Closed-up em dashes (—) are a popular convention in US-English style.

This is not the law, not a rule, not the only way or the right way. It’s just the style that many publishers and independent authors choose to follow and that readers are used to seeing. Again, consistency is recommended so that readers aren’t unnecessarily distracted.

Example 1
Here’s an example written in British-English style, using spaced en dashes and single quotation marks.

‘I’m struggling to understand why you’ – he jabbed his finger right under my nose – ‘thought it was okay to change the name of this operation. You’re not the senior investigating officer.’

And here it is again in US-English style, using closed-up em dashes and double quotation marks.

“I’m struggling to understand why you”—he jabbed his finger right under my nose—“thought it was okay to change the name of this operation. You’re not the senior investigating officer.”

Example 2
Here’s an example written in British-English style, using spaced en dashes and single quotation marks. This time we’re dealing with an additional punctuation mark: the ellipsis.

‘So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week? Jesus, he’s already had two extensions. And in his last email he said it would be in by …’ – she scrolled through the messages in her inbox – ‘the third of May. It’s right here in black and white. Right, Ibi, tell him he’s blown it and get someone else on it.’

And here it is again in US-English style, using closed-up em dashes and double quotation marks.

“So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week? Jesus, he’s already had two extensions. And in his last email he said it would be in by …”—she scrolled through the messages in her inbox—“the third of May. It’s right here in black and white. Right, Ibi, tell him he’s blown it and get someone else on it.”

Which case to use: Upper or lower?
The action beats contained within the parenthetical dashes don’t start with a capital letter. Instead, the convention asks for lower case because the text is interrupting the dialogue midstream.

Avoiding three consecutive punctuation marks

At one point In Example 2 above, there are three punctuation marks in a row: an ellipsis, a quotation mark, and a dash. That’s not something that would bother me because I can see the function each has:

The ellipsis shows that the speaker takes a pause.
The closing quotation marks indicates that the speech has stopped.
The dash marks interruptive narrative and tells the reader that the speech will resume after the action beat.

However, some authors feel uncomfortable with multiple punctuation marks. If that’s you, you could try the following:

1. Remove the ellipsis and let the reader insert their own pause
Without the ellipsis, it’s not as clear to the reader if the scrolling is happening at the same time as the character is speaking or if she takes a pause, but does it really matter? In this case, probably not.

‘So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week? Jesus, he’s already had two extensions. And in his last email he said it would be in by’ – she scrolled through the messages in her inbox – ‘the third of May. It’s right here in black and white. Right, Ibi, tell him he’s blown it and get someone else on it.’

2. Tell (rather than show) the pause
If an author feels it’s absolutely necessary for the reader to know about the pause but doesn’t want to show it with an ellipsis, they could tell it (she paused).

Some might consider this a less elegant solution – a little wordy perhaps – but most readers likely won’t bat an eyelid unless those told pauses and hesitations are littering a text.

“So Mac’s not delivering the report for another week? Jesus, he’s already had two extensions. And in his last email he said it would be in by”—she paused and scrolled through the messages in her inbox—“the third of May. It’s right here in black and white. Right, Ibi, tell him he’s blown it and get someone else on it.”

Summing up

As always, bear in mind that punctuation conventions are useful and helpful ... until they mess with rhythm and mood. The guidance I’m offering is just that – guidance. It’s not a prescriptive set of rules you must follow.

If you want to interrupt dialogue midstream with action beats, try setting off the beat with dashes.

The choice of whether to use single or double quotation marks and spaced en dashes or closed-up em dashes is the author’s (or the publisher’s). If you’re a freelance fiction editor, check what your client’s style preferences are.

Once the style choice has been made, go for consistency so that readers can concentrate on immersing themselves in the story rather than untangling the punctuation.

Related line-craft resources

Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
Courses: The Fiction Line Editing Bundle
Course: How to Line Edit for Suspense
Course: How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report
Course: Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

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Becoming a fiction editor: 4 things you need to know

18/8/2021

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Find out about 4 key things you need to know if you want to become a fiction editor. Denise Cowle puts Louise Harnby under the microscope!

Listen to find out more about

The main types of fiction editing and the kinds of things a fiction editor needs to look out for
What additional training you might need
The market and client expectations
The need for a flexible hand
Becoming a fiction editor (free booklet)
Switching to Fiction (course)

Music credit

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

More fiction-skills resources

Check out these additional resources that will help you develop your fiction-editing business.

Conscious language resources (free booklet for editors)
Fiction editing learning centre
How to Start a Fiction Editing Business (free webinar for editors)
Blog post: How to spell in a novel – wherever your characters are from
Blog post: 3 ways to reduce word count and write a leaner thriller
Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
Book: Making Sense of 'Show, Don't Tell'
Business Skills Collection (6 ebooks)
Switching to Fiction (course for editors)

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

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Sensitivity reading: Tips from editor Crystal Shelley

7/12/2020

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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle talk to editor Crystal Shelley about sensitivity reading.

Listen to find out more about

What is sensitivity reading?
What types of topics do people read for?
What does the sensitivity reading process look like?
Why should an author hire a sensitivity reader?
What type of feedback does a sensitivity reader give?
How does someone become a sensitivity reader?
Some authors are hesitant to work with a sensitivity reader because there's concern about censorship or having books pulled. How do you address those concerns?
Is sensitivity reading only useful for fiction?
How do authors find sensitivity readers?

Discover more about Crystal at Rabbit with a Red Pen.

Mentioned in the show

Find a sensitivity reader: Binders for Sensitivity Readers
Conscious Style Guide
Editors of Color

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

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.

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Creative writing tips: With thriller writer Andy Maslen

23/11/2020

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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle talk to thriller writer Andy Maslen about the creative-writing process.

Creative writing tips: With thriller writer Andy Maslen

Listen to find out more about

Writing a series vs standalone novels
Tips on developing a coherent series
Starting afresh with a new set of characters in a new environment
Top creative-writing tips for beginner author
Recommended writing-craft resources
Back-cover blurb and Amazon blurbs
Cover design

Here's where you can find out more about Andy Maslen's thrillers.

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/

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The Editing Podcast: Story creation and revision. With mystery writer David Unger

9/11/2020

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

Story creation and revision: With author David Unger

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/

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Crime fiction grammar: Is it okay to start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’?

5/10/2020

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Good news! It is perfectly okay to start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’ in crime fiction writing ... in any fiction writing, in fact. Doing so can enrich the narrative 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.

Fiction grammar: Is it okay to start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’?

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:

‘And you will have no hesitation in doing what has to be done? You have no doubts?’ (At Risk, Stella Rimington, p. 187)

‘And where’s he getting the money from? You know the situation as well as I do. He isn’t on leave of absence from a university.’ (The Dream Archipelago, Christopher Priest, p. 227)

“But your way makes more sense. So you think Maura was working with Rex?”
“I do.”
“Doesn’t mean she didn’t set Rex up.”
“Right.”
“But if she wasn’t involved in the murder, where is she now?” (Don’t Let Go, Harlan Coben, p. 76)

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).

There's a part of him that wants to run down there, charge through, and shoot every fucking person he sees inside that hotel, ending with the man who put him in the chair. Meghan’s brain broke because of him. She is dead because of him. Hotel Memory needs to end.
But that would most likely only get him killed.
No, he'll call Gwen instead, propose an off-the-books, under-the-radar op with a handful of SWAT colleagues. If she insists, he'll take an affidavit to a judge.

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.

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.

Matlock walked to the small, rectangular window with the wire-enclosed glass. The police station was at the south end of the town of Carlyle, about a half a mile from the campus, the section of town considered industrialized. Still, there were trees along the streets. Carlyle was a very clean town, a neat town. The trees by the station house were pruned and shaped.
And Carlyle was also something else.

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.

Dolly Guntner certainly wasn't in a position to say anything bad about him.
Which left Carol Beakman. Carol had seen him. And while she didn't actually see him kill Dolly, if the police ever spoke with her, she'd be able to tell them it couldn't have been anyone else but him.
As far as Cory could figure, the only living witness to his crimes was Carol Beakman.
He was nearly back to the cabin.
It seemed clear what he had to do.
And he'd have to do it fast.

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).

The boy said, 'I don't quite know exactly where Mister Charlie will be right now, but you could always ask the peelers.' He smiled. 'You can be sure that there will be a lot of them about.'
Ask a peeler! Dodger? But surely that was the old Dodger saying that, he thought.

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.

I won't be able to place this in any kind of context until I go through everything Sam has brought, though he says he didn't see a reply to Jacoby's questions. Certainly the fact that a man who was soon to be a murder victim experimenting in any way with his own DNA is at least curious, and something for me to look into carefully if I stay on the case.
But a nurse comes in and asks me to quickly come to Laurie's room, so right now everything else is going to have to wait.

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

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What are expletives in the grammar of crime and thriller fiction?

21/9/2020

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Want to use grammatical expletives in your crime, mystery and thriller 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.

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.

FLAT EXPLETIVE
It was a tiny room. There was a light switch with rust-coloured smudged fingermarks on the melamine surface. Was that blood? There was a noise coming from beyond on the back wall. It was a high-pitched whimper. Then there was silence. She held her breath and tiptoed forward.
Suddenly there was a scream.

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.

THE FIX
The room was tiny. Rust-coloured fingermarks smudged the melamine surface of the light switch. Blood maybe. A noise came from beyond a door on the back wall. A high-pitched whimper. Then nothing. She held her breath and tiptoed forward.
A scream shattered the silence.

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.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair [...]

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.

“Andy Carpenter, Lawyer to the Dogs.”
That was the USA Today headline on a piece that ran about me a couple of months ago.

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'

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What is an omniscient narrative point of view?

17/8/2020

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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.

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:

The narrator knows everything, and isn’t limited to the viewpoint of any single character. An omniscient narrator could be a character in the story (like a god or an enlightened person), or they could be an observing nonentity. Completely omniscient viewpoints are difficult to pull off well because the narrator needs to have reasons for imparting the knowledge they choose to impart in the order they choose to do so, otherwise the story will feel contrived [...] Omniscient narration and third person objective narration have similarities, but the key is looking for when the narrator knows more than it could objectively observe.

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).

He continued, slowly, by a process of osmosis and white knowledge (which is like white noise, only more informative), to comprehend the city, a process which accelerated when he realized that the actual City of London itself was no bigger than a square mile [...]
Two thousand years before, London had been a little Celtic village on the north shore of the Thames which the Romans had encountered and settled in. London had grown, slowly, until, roughly a thousand years later, it met the tiny Royal City of Westminster [...]
London grew into something huge and contradictory. It was a good place, and a fine city, but there is a price to be paid for all good places, and a price that all good places have to pay.
After a while, Richard found himself taking London for granted.

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.

In the following extracts, notice the shift beyond what it’s possible for the man to see, think or know.

He woke in the morning and turned over in the blanket and looked down the road through the trees the way they’d come in time to see the marchers four abreast. Dressed in clothing of every description, all wearing red scarves at their necks. Red or orange, as close to red as they could find. He put his hand on the boy’s head. Shh, he said. (pp. 95–6)

He wallowed into the ground and lay watching across his forearm. An army in tennis shoes, tramping. Carrying three-foot lengths of pipe with leather wrappings. [...] The phalanx following carried spears or lances tasselled with ribbons, the long blades hammered out of trucksprings in some crude forge upcountry. The boy lay with his face in his arms, terrified. (p. 96)

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).

Through the fathomless deeps of space swims the star turtle Great A’Tuin, bearing on its back the four giant elephants who carry on their shoulders the mass of the Discworld. A tiny sun and moon spin around them, on a complicated orbit to induce seasons, so probably nowhere else in the multiverse is it sometimes necessary for an elephant to cock a leg to allow the sun to go past.
Exactly why this should be may never be known. Possibly, the Creator of the universe got bored with all the usual business of axial inclination, albedos and rotational velocities, and decided to have a bit of fun for once.

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.

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

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Where to place dialogue tags in fiction

10/8/2020

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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.

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).

“Come on!” he screams.

‘It’s very … evocative,’ says Ruth. This is true. The brushwork may be crude, the planes out of perspective and the figures barely more than stick men, but there’s something about the work of the unknown airman that brings back the past more effectively than any documentary or reconstruction.

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.

‘It’s not signed,’ says Frank, ‘but there’s something that may be a clue.’

“Thanks for holding the gun,” Tom said. “Now pull the trigger.”

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.

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.

“That’s a Black Hawk,” he says. “Wonder what’s going on in town.”
The chopper banks hard to the left and slows its groundspeed, now drifting back in their direction as it lowers from five hundred feet toward the ground.
Helena says, “They’re here for us.”

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.

Slade lifts his Champagne glass and polishes off the rest.
“You stole that other life from me.”
“Helena—”
“Was I married? Did I have kids?”
“Do you really want to know? It doesn’t matter now. It never happened.”
“You’re a monster.”

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.

‘But you think they’re coming back,’ Karen said.
‘Yes, indeed, and we gonna have a surprise party. I want you to take a radio, go down to the lobby and hang out with the folks. You see Foley and this guy Bragg, what do you do?’
‘Call and tell you.’
‘And you let them come up. You understand? You don’t try to make the bust yourself.’
Burdon slipping back into his official mode.
Karen said, ‘What if they see me?’
‘You don’t let that happen,’ Burdon said. ‘I want them upstairs.’

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

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What is a second-person narrative point of view?

3/8/2020

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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’.

There is another faint crunching noise as the body spasms once and then goes limp. Blood spreads blackly from his mouth over the collar of his white shirt and starts to drip onto the pale marble of the steps. [...]
You go downstairs and walk through the kitchen, where the two women sit tied to their chairs; you leave via the same window you entered by, walking calmly through the small back garden into the mews where the motorbiked is parked.
You hear the first faint, distant screams just as you take the bike’s key from your pocket. You feel suddenly elated.
You’re glad you didn’t have to hurt the women.

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.

Cited sources and related reading

Complicity, Iain Banks, Abacus, 1994
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, Tom Robbins, Random House, 2002
Making Sense of Point of View (Transform Your Fiction series: 1)

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When to indent text: Laying out narrative and dialogue in fiction

27/7/2020

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This post explains when and how to indent your narrative and dialogue according to publishing-industry convention.

To indent or not to indent: A quick guide to laying out narrative and dialogue in fiction

The purpose of first-line indents
Each new paragraph signifies a change or shift of some sort ... perhaps a new idea, piece of action, thought or speaker, even a moderation or acceleration of pace. Still, the prose in all those paragraphs within a section is connected.

Paragraph indents have two purposes in fiction:

Readability: They help the reader identify the shifts visually.
Connectivity: They indicate a journey. Indented paragraphs are related to what's come before ... part of the same scene.

First lines in chapters and new sections
Chapters and sections are bigger shifts: perhaps the viewpoint character changes, or there's a shift in timeline or location.

To mark this bigger shift in a novel, it’s conventional not to indent the first line of text in a new chapter or a new section. You might hear editorial folks refer to this non-indented text as full out.

This is standard with narrative and dialogue.
The convention applies regardless of your line spacing.

NARRATIVE LAYOUT
The following example is taken from Part 5, Chapter 2, of Christopher Priest’s Inverted World (p. 287, 2010):

Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
The first line is not indented.
The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

And here's an example from Part 2, Chapter 6, p. 147, which shows how the layout works the same after a section break:

Paragraph 1 is the first in the section.
The first line is not indented.
The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

Even if an author chooses to include a design feature such as a dropped capital (sometimes called a drop cap), it's standard for that letter to be full out, as shown in the following example from To Kill a Devil (John A. Connell, p. 6, Nailhead Publishing, 2020):

Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
The capital letter on the first and second lines is not indented.
The first line of the paragraph that follows it (2) is indented.

DIALOGUE LAYOUT
The same applies even if the chapter or section starts with dialogue, as in this excerpt from David Rosenfelt's Dog Tags (p. 192, Grand Central, 2010):

Paragraph 1 is the first in the chapter.
The first line is not indented.
The first lines of the paragraphs that follow it (2) are indented.

Body text: dialogue and narrative
The example below from Blake Crouch's Recursion (p. 4, Macmillan, 2019) shows how the indentation works in the body text when there's a mixture of dialogue and narrative.

Regardless of whether the prose is narrative or reported speech, the text is indented.
The convention applies regardless of line spacing.

IMPACT OF LINE SPACING
Even if you've elected to set your book file with double line spacing (perhaps at the request of a publisher, agent or editor), the indentation convention applies. Here's the Recursion example again, tweaked to show what it would look like:

Indenting text that follows special elements
Your novel might include special elements such as letters, texts, reports, lists or newspaper articles. Authors can choose to set off these elements with wider line spacing, but how do we handle the text that comes after?

Again, it's conventional to indent text that follows this content, regardless of whether it's narrative or dialogue. That's because of the connective function; the text is part of the same scene.

Here are some examples from commercial fiction pulled from my bookshelves.

REPORT: The Outsider, Stephen King, Hodder, 2018, p. 252
LIST: Life of Pi, Yann Martel, Canongate, 2002, p. 146
TRANSCRIPT: Snap, Belinda Bauer, Black Swan, 2018, p. 36
RECORD: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline, Arrow, 2012, p. 300

It's not the case that full-out text is never used, or can't be used, but fiction readers are used to conventions. When a paragraph isn't indented, they assume it's a new section, which creates a tiny disconnect.

That's what I think's happened in the example below from Kate Hamer's The Girl in the Red Coat (p. 325, Faber & Faber, 2015). Of course, it took me only a split second to work out that the narrator is referring to the preceding letter, but it's a split second that took me away from the story because I'd assumed I was looking at a section break.

My preference would be to indent 'I touch my finger [...]' because that text is part of the scene, not a new section.

How to create a first-line indent in Word
Let's finish with some quick guidance on creating first-line indents.

Avoid using spaces and tabs to create indents in Word. Instead, create proper indents. There are several ways to do this.

Open the Home tab (1).
Select your text.
Move your cursor to the ruler and select the top marker (2).
Drag it to the position of your preferred indent.
Right-click on the style in the ribbon (3).
Select 'Update Normal to Match Selection'.

Open the Home tab (1).
Open the Styles pane via the arrow icon (4).
Select your text.
Move your cursor to the ruler and select the top marker (2).
Drag it to the position of your preferred indent.
Go to the Styles pane (5) and right-click on the style (6).
Select 'Update Normal to Match Selection'.

Open the Home tab (1).
Open the Styles pane via the arrow icon (4).
Go to the Styles pane (5) and right-click on the style (6).
Select 'Modify' to open the Modify Styles pane (A).
Click on the Format button in the bottom left-hand corner (B).
Select Paragraph to open the Paragraph pane (C).
Make sure you're in the Indents and Spacing tab.
Look at the Indentations section in the middle. Make sure 'First line' is selected under 'Special:' (D).
Adjust the first-line indent according to your preference (E).
Click OK (F).

Create a new style for your full-out paragraphs using the same tools.

If using the ruler, ensure the markers (2) are aligned, one on top of the other.
If using the styles pane, adjust the indent spacing (E) to zero.

If you need more assistance with creating styles, watch this free webinar. There's no sign-up; just click on the button and dig in.

ACCESS WEBINAR

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How to show the emotions of non-viewpoint characters

20/7/2020

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Non-viewpoint characters have emotions too. But how do we show them without head-hopping? The answer lies in mastering observable behaviour.

What is head-hopping?
When a reader can access the internal experiences (emotions, thoughts, memories) of more than one character in a chapter or section, head-hopping is usually in play.
The exception is if you’re tackling the tricky beast that is omniscient narration. It’s difficult to pull off and rarely used in contemporary commercial fiction.

Here’s an example of what head-hopping looks like on the page. Jack is the viewpoint character and the narration style is third-person limited.

The pebble bounces on the water seven, eight, no, nine times. Best ever, Jack thinks.
Pete weaves through the grass and slumps into a hollow in the dune. His brother’s whoop, the arc of his arm … just like Dad’s when they played skimming stones. Before the accident. Before the world changed. He shakes the memory from his head. Dwelling on that stuff never ends well.
Jack turns away from the ocean, waves and calls for Pete to come down but the crashing surf swallows his words.

Notice the following:

Best ever is Jack’s thought. That puts us in his head, which is fine because this is an excerpt from a chapter in which he’s the viewpoint character. But that means we cannot access what’s going on in Pete’s head – how he is remembering his dad and the accident, and the decision to not dwell on those things.
Look at the physicality too. Jack turns away from the water, which means he was facing it and couldn’t have observed Pete weaving through the grass and slumping into the dune. All he can do is see Pete on the dune after he’s turned.

How to enter a non-viewpoint character’s space without dropping viewpoint
There will be times when you want your reader to enter the emotional and physical space of a non-viewpoint character.

Mastering observable behaviour – showing us what the viewpoint character can see, and their interpretation of that behaviour – is one solution that will enable you to hold viewpoint.

Here’s a recast of the Jack/Pete scene:

The pebble bounces on the water seven, eight, no, nine times. Best ever, Jack thinks.
He whoops and turns his back to the ocean. Pete’s lumbering gait is unmistakable. He weaves through the grass on the dune and slumps into a hollow, mouth set in a hard line, neck hunched into his shoulders, complexion pasty. But he’s out; the sunlight’s on his face. It’s the first time since a month of whenevers.
Skimming stones was something they did with Dad. Before the accident. Before the world changed. Jack shakes the memory from his head. Dwelling on that stuff never ends well. He waves, calls for his brother to come down but the crashing surf swallows his words.

Notice the following:

We don’t leave Jack’s head. I’ve given him the memory of their dad and the accident, and the decision to not dwell.
I’ve changed the order of movement. Jack turns first so he can observe Pete’s journey through the grass and into the hollow of the dune.
Pete’s mood isn’t told (since we can’t access his inner experience). However, it can be shown through the set of his mouth, the position of his neck and the hue of his skin as Jack perceives it. Furthermore, we can infer that he’s been struggling to deal with the accident through Jack’s relief that he’s at least outside for a change.

Mastering observation
Mastering observation enables writers to retain viewpoint but not be restricted by it. Think about how non-viewpoint characters will move in a way that reflects their internal experience, or what they will look like. Here are a few examples:

What the non-viewpoint character feels but cannot be told because we’re not in their head	What’s visible and audible to the viewpoint character
Pain	They grimace; clutch a part of their body; wince; howl
Shock	They jump back; gasp; stumble; put a hand to their chest
Nervousness	They fidget with a zipper; pick at their nails; shred a beer mat; stutter
Embarrassment	They blush; avoid eye contact; their breathing is shallow; they speak faster than usual
Nausea	Their complexion is tinged a different colour; they gag or retch; their voice is flat

Summing up
If you’re writing in a third-person limited narration style, consider what the viewpoint character already knows, what they can observe in relation to a non-viewpoint character, and what they could infer from those observations. That will determine what they can report.

What they report can still allow readers to access the internal experience of the non-viewpoint character through a back door. And while that report will be biased, it will be immersive.

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How to use reflexive pronouns in fiction

13/7/2020

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Himself, herself, myself, themself ... check the usage of pronouns in your fiction. You might just be overworking them, such that you’re stating the obvious, modifying the pace, and reducing tension.

Questionable usage
Reflexive pronouns can act as double tells by stating the obvious, and mar pace and tension.

Stating the obvious

Max grabbed a fistful of dandelion leaves and shoved them into his mouth. Needs garlic, he thought to himself.
Jenny wondered to herself about the dream – it had been so real, as if she’d had full control. And yet …

When it comes to internal musings, authors can ditch the reflexive pronouns. Thoughts take place inside a person’s head and, by definition, are offered only for the thinker – unless there’s telepathy going on in the novel!

Moderating pace and reducing tension

Max ducked, rolled himself over the floor and grabbed the Browning. Fired out two shots. Both hit home.
Ali sprinted down the street and swung herself into the shadows.

These are high-tension scenes. Max is in a shoot-out; Ali’s escaping danger. Every word stretches out the sentence. And as the sentence length loosens, so does the tension.

Look what happens when we remove the pronouns:

Max ducked, rolled over the floor and grabbed the Browning. Fired out two shots. Both hit home.
Ali sprinted down the street and swung into the shadows.

The sentences shorten, the pace increases – and so does the tension.

Usage that works
We shouldn’t omit all -self pronouns. There are occasions when a sentence works better with them. Sometimes they’re essential.

Clarity
In some cases, the pronoun is necessary for clarity. The reader can’t be sure of what the verb’s object is without it. In the examples below, removing the pronouns could leave the reader with questions: Ashamed of what? A promise to whom? Stop what? Consider whom an expert?

Ordinarily, she’d have been ashamed of herself, but there was no guilt – not this time.
I made a promise to myself never again to lose my rag over something so inconsequential.
He couldn’t stop himself; it took five minutes to demolish the chocolate egg.
I consider myself an expert, and no one will convince me otherwise.

Emphasis
The pronoun can be used to emphasize the person being discussed. Omission would leave the sentence grammatically intact but change the mood and pacing. In this case, it’s a judgement call on the author’s part.

Sarah told me so herself.
The queen herself told me.
John hadn’t been the only one having a hard time. I myself had been suffering from anxiety at the time.

Sense
Some sentences don’t make grammatical sense without a reflexive pronoun. Remove them and the writing leaves more than questions: it’s unreadable.

She had to defend herself from that monster – no two ways about it.
Cass doused themself in perfume.
Why shouldn’t he call himself the King of Hearts? Who cares if it sounds daft? Daft is good.
He dragged himself to the top of the stairs.

Reflexive pronouns: mood versus clutter
At the top of this post, I offered examples of how -self pronouns can reduce tension. There will be occasions when an author wants to do exactly that.

I was trying to make a new life for myself. That’s all there was to it.
I was trying to make a new life. That’s all there was to it.

There’s a more staccato feel to the second version above that might jar if the author’s seeking a contemplative mood.

Still, too much self-ing can make even a stress-free scene overly wordy so it’s always worth thinking about whether a leaner version would be more immersive and get the reader from A to B faster.

In the first version of the triplets that follow, the pronouns introduce a chilled-out sense of laissez-faire to the movement. In the second I’ve omitted them. And in the third, I’ve ditched the mundane movement and focused on the essential beat.

He found himself a chair and sat down.
He found a chair and sat down.
He sat down.

Maxie busied themself with the coffee machine and settled down to read the letter.
Maxie made a coffee and settled down to read the letter.
Maxie read the letter.

She got herself up and called Mel.
She got up and called Mel.
She called Mel.

It’s always worth an author spending a little time on thinking about how much micromanagement of a scene is necessary.

Will the reader care about the chair discovery, or that Maxie had a hot drink while they were reading the letter, or that the protagonist was no longer on the sofa when she called Mel?

Perhaps. If that stuff’s central to driving the novel forward, to reflecting mood, to grounding the character in the environment, the pronoun and the stage direction might be necessary. If it’s clutter that can be removed without damaging reader engagement, lean up the scene!

Summing up
Use reflexive pronouns when they’re necessary for clarity, sense and emphasis. Otherwise, consider leaner prose that focuses on what the reader needs to know to move forward in the story.

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Fiction copyediting for indie authors: Are you fit for purpose?

29/6/2020

1 Comment

Want to copyedit fiction for indie authors? Even if you have extensive experience of working for publishers, there are skills and knowledge you might need to acquire before making the shift.

Publishing has its own language
Fiction copyediting means something specific in a publishing company. It’s usually (there are always exceptions to the rule) the corrective work that focuses on spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency and logic.

It’s important work – meticulous and detailed. It stops a character giving birth two months before she got pregnant; it spots when your protagonist’s eyes have changed colour; it flags up the trigger safety that doesn’t exist on the model of gun being described.

In the wider world, ‘copyediting’ can mean all sorts of things. It will include all of the above but might include a deeper level of stylistic work.

Some editors will use different terminology to describe their services, such that this middle-level editing – further down the chain than developmental or structural work but higher up than the prepublication proofread – is more intense.

Some editors even include developmental/structural work in their ‘copyediting’ service because their target clients fall into one or both of the following categories:

aren’t familiar with all the levels of editing
are more likely to search for terms such as ‘copyediting’ and ‘proofreading’ even though the big-picture elements of their story might also need some work

The mismatch between language and need
Some editors work only for publishers. Some work only for indie authors. Some work for both.

That messy publishing language becomes problematic when everyone’s using one term – ‘copyediting’ – to mean different things.

Plus, none of us knows what we don’t know.

If an editor has copyedited fiction only for publishers, and then moves into the indie-author market, there’s a risk that their knowledge and skills match the needs and expectations of mainstream publishers, but not those of indie authors.

Many indie authors are self-publishing for the first time. They’ll expect a professional editor to know what they don’t. But a fiction copyeditor, just by virtue of having done something called ‘fiction copyediting’ as defined by publishers, might not know how to handle the stylistic issues in a book.

That doesn’t mean they’re a bad editor. It means they have a specific skill set that might not be what the indie author needs or asks for.

Case study

GOOD EDITOR; BAD FIT

The author
Jo Pennedanovel is navigating the independent publishing world for the first time. She’s never gone it alone so she’s working from scratch – writing, finding editorial support and a cover designer, building a promotion strategy, and learning about sales and distribution platforms.

The brief
Jo knows that more than a proofread is required, but she’s happy with the big-picture aspects of her novel. She needs something in the middle: ‘copyediting’, she’s heard it called. So that’s what she looks for.

Jo goes online and searches for a copyeditor, finds someone who has over a decade’s worth of experience of copyediting fiction for some of the big-name publishing houses.

If that editor’s good enough for them, they’re good enough for Jo! Jo hires the copyeditor for her book.

The outcome
Jo’s a professional and takes her writing seriously. She knows there will be outstanding glitches that were missed at copyediting stage, so she hires another editor to proofread her book. All well and good so far.

The editor fixes the outstanding proofreading glitches but notices the following:

There are over 300 viewpoint drops – most are small but still glaring to him because, well, he’s studied line craft.
The prose is sometimes laboured and repetitive – not because Jo’s a poor writer but because she’s immersed in the storytelling rather than the minutiae.
A plethora of speech tags tell of mood that’s already been adequately conveyed in the excellent dialogue.

The fix
The proofreader could ignore all the line-craft issues. After all, he’s not been commissioned to do this work and it will cut into his hourly rate. And anyway, shouldn’t the previous editor have fixed this stuff?

Still, he’s committed to editorial excellence, wants a cracking book in his portfolio, and would like to work with that author again, so he decides that ignoring these problems isn’t an option.

He could do one of the following:

Flag up the issues in a report but elect not to solve each individual problem.
Go the whole hog, offer suggested recasts so Jo can fix the problems easily, and write off the extra time as a marketing expense. Maybe he can persuade Jo to hire him for the copyediting stage next time.
Halt the proofread, go back to Jo, explain the problem and try to renegotiate the project brief.

I’ve done all three in my time. My choice was based on the author, my schedule, and the connection I felt with the project. There’s no wrong or right, just informed decision-making.

What’s gone wrong in the editing process?
So what went wrong in that case study? This problem arises because of flawed assumptions about language and responsibility.

Language
The author and the editor are using the same language to describe different outcomes.

The author thinks of ‘copyediting’ as a middle-ground service between developmental/structural editing and proofreading.
The editor, who works mainly for publishers, considers ‘copyediting’ a non-stylistic type of work that comes after line editing.

What Jo needed was an editor who recognizes that ‘copyediting’ could mean something different in the author’s head – something like: Do what’s required to make my prose sing! I don’t know what those things are, but that’s why I’m hiring you.

What she got was a traditional high-quality copyedit as defined by a different client type. It’s work that she needed, but not all the work she needed.

Responsibility
A frequent fallback position on the editor’s part is this: it’s the author’s fault because they didn’t hire the right service. Jo shouldn’t have commissioned a copyedit when stylistic work was required.

That’s flawed. She hired a professional editor precisely because they’re a professional editor. She wanted them to show her what she didn’t know.

The situation is complicated further by the fact that editors define their services differently. I offer ‘line-/copyediting’. Some of my colleagues offer the same level of intervention but call it just ‘copyediting’. Others offer two distinct services: ‘line editing’ and ‘copyediting’.

Yet others don’t even call line editing ‘line editing’. It might be called ‘substantive editing’ or ‘stylistic editing’.

It is any wonder that an indie author chooses to ignore the tangled terminology and focus on collating a shortlist of editors who have extensive experience of working for traditional industry gatekeepers – publishers?

That works splendidly when the editors have the skills and knowledge to go beyond what a publisher might expect from a fiction copyedit. But it can fall of a cliff when the rigidity of the terminology restricts the depth of editing required.

How can editors help fix the problem?
Editors must take responsibility for the language they use and the skills they have so that they’re fit for a diverse indie-author market. That means learning and educating.

Learn line craft
Fiction editors serving indie authors should learn line craft – the stylistic sentence-level editing that might be required.

If we don’t understand the likes of show and tell, narrative viewpoint, tense, holding suspense, dialogue craft, and so on, we should question whether we’re ready for this market.

And if we do still want to serve this market with publisher-defined copyediting, we must be explicit about the fact that we don’t offer solutions to stylistic problems in prose.

Still, being able to say we don’t offer those solutions means understanding what they are in the first place. Not recognizing them is not an option.

Educate authors
We must go the extra mile to ensure that our online and direct communications with authors explain the different levels of editing and how we define them.

A website that boasts of our achievements but doesn’t show our understanding of the craft of fiction editing doesn’t help a beginner author make informed decisions. It serves only us, not them.

That can lead to disappointment on the author’s part. And disappointment leads to mistrust, not just with the editor who did the work but with the global editorial community in general.

Editors frequently report that editing is ‘undervalued’ and ‘underpaid’. But value and worth have to be earned. So does trust.

When an editor works with an indie author, but doesn’t have the skills to offer what’s required, or is ignorant of the fact that they don’t have those skills, it’s they – not the author – who is bringing down value and worth in the editing industry.

How can authors help fix the problem?
Writers can help themselves too. If you’re an indie author, and you’re not one hundred per cent sure about what you need, do the following:

Author checklist

FINDING A GOOD-FIT EDITOR

Learn about the various levels of editing (there's a booklet below that will help you with that).
Be aware that publishing language is messy. Focus on the what rather than the what-it’s-called. One person’s ‘copyedit’ might look very different from another’s. One person’s ‘line edit’ might be another’s ‘stylistic edit’.
Check more than the editor’s career history. Where they worked is interesting; what they did is critical. Yes, they’ve copyedited a hundred novels for Hodder & Stoughton but what did that ‘copyediting’ include? Is that what you require, or might you need something deeper, more stylistic?
Get more than one sample edit if not-knowing-what-you-don’t-know is in play. That will give you a glimpse of how each editor would tackle your novel; how deep they’d go, and what the problems might be.
Consider their training. Have they learned about, or are they teaching sentence-level fiction editing? It’s only part of the story, but it’s yet another light you can shine to see what lies beneath the glossy portfolio.

CLICK IMAGE TO ACCESS BOOKLET AND FREE WEBINAR

Summing up
What publishers expect from a fiction copyeditor is often very different to what indie authors will want or need.

If you’re an editor who wants to offer sentence-level work for indie authors, think about the following:

The language you use to describe your service.
The indie author’s expectations.

Even if you have an extensive fiction copyediting background by virtue of having worked for a ton of mainstream publishers, there might still be a mismatch between what’s required or what’s asked for and your own definitions and experience.

Be prepared to learn, and to show what you’ve learned when you communicate with indie authors. That’s how we build trust, value and worth.

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The Editing Podcast: Moving from traditional to indie publishing, with John A. Connell

22/6/2020

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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: [email protected]
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.

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The Editing Podcast: Editing erotica and adult fiction, S4E10

8/6/2020

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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise talk to fellow editor Maya Berger about working on erotica and adult fiction.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 10

RATE AND REVIEW

Listen to find out more about:

Does adult fiction need editing?
Sorting out the language: pornography versus erotica
Editing in your comfort zone
Common problems authors struggle with
Sub-genres and good-fit editing
Evaluating an author's work

Contact Maya

Email: [email protected]
Website: What I Mean To Say

Editing bites

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The Editing Podcast: 6 ways to use audio for book promotion, S4E9

1/6/2020

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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss the growth of audio in the book world, and how using sound creates reader engagement and helps build a fan base.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 9

Listen to find out more about:

Narrating a sample chapter
Creating free audio content that's usable
Host a live sound event
Broadcast an interview
Encouraging sign-ups with your voice
Starting a podcast
Captivate: podcast hosting, stats and audience growth

Editing bites and other resources

Write to be Published, Nicola Morgan, Snowbooks, 2011
Twitter chat #indieauthorchat hosted by Tim Lewis
Captivate
Libsyn
Soundcloud
Music Visualisation Video Creator
Audio-book Production (free booklet)
‘How to turn YouTube subtitles into blog posts and transcripts’ (blog post and video tutorial)
Cleanfeed
Zoom

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

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The Editing Podcast: Do you need a specialist editor?

25/5/2020

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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.

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The Editing Podcast: 18 writing-craft blogs for editors and authors, S4E7

18/5/2020

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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.

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How to save money and time with book coaching: The Editing Podcast, S4E4

11/5/2020

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In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat with book coach and editor Lisa Poisso about honing story craft before embarking on expensive structural and line editing.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 4

Listen to find out more about:

Story basics: the Plot Accelerator
Why developmental/structural editing comes after book coaching
Genre, viewpoint, tense, character motivation and conflict, plot and subplot, and character arc
Book mapping, and avoiding drinking and thinking!
Super critiques on steroids: making a story solid
The dynamics of book coaching
Most common problems authors face
Super-critiques

Contacting Lisa Poisso

Editing bites and other resources

Moniack Mhor, Creative Writing Centre, Scotland
Start writing fiction: Free Open University course

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

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Writing natural dialogue – using contractions

13/4/2020

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Not sure if contractions are a good fit for your fiction’s dialogue? Here’s why they (nearly always) work.

Next time you’re in the pub with friends, at the dinner table with your family, or travelling on the bus, do a bit of people-listening. They’ll speak with contractions: you’re, they’re, I’m, don’t, hadn’t, can’t and so on.

Contractions are a normal part of speech. They help us communicate faster and improve the flow of a sentence.

Watch the following videos and listen to the spoken words. They feature people with very different backgrounds, sharing different stories, and in situations that demand varying levels of formality.

The people talking have one thing in common: they use contractions when they speak ... most (though not all) of the time.

That’s why when we want to write natural dialogue – dialogue that flows with the ease of real-life speech – contractions work.

How contractions affect the flow of dialogue
Take a look at this excerpt from No Dominion by Louise Welsh (Kindle edition, John Murray, 2017).

He settled himself on the chair. ‘I don’t know where you’ve just come from, but round here nothing’s odd.’ He emphasised the word, making it sound absurd. ‘People come, people go. Sometimes they need something. Sometimes they’ve got something I need. We trade and they go on their way.’

Here’s the contraction-free recast. It reads awkwardly, and leaves us unconvinced that what’s in our mind’s ear bears any relation to what we would have heard had this been real speech. And that means we’re questioning the authenticity of the story rather than immersing ourselves in it.

He settled himself on the chair. ‘I do not know where you have just come from, but round here nothing is odd.’ He emphasised the word, making it sound absurd. ‘People come, people go. Sometimes they need something. Sometimes they have got something I need. We trade and they go on their way.’

Contractions and genre
Some authors avoid contractions because of the genre they’re writing in. You’re more likely to see this in historical fiction than contemporary commercial fiction but it’s not strictly genre-specific and is more an issue of authorial style.

Here’s an excerpt from a contemporary psychological mystery, The Wych Elm (Penguin, 2019, p. 71). Tana French uses contractions in the narrative and dialogue. The speech sounds natural; the narrative that frames it is informal.

‘Oh, yeah. Now’s when you’ll notice anything out of place. And you’ll want to get the gaff back in order, and you can’t do that till you’ve done the look-round.’ Back in order-- It hadn’t even occurred to me to think about what shape my apartment might be in.

Compare this with Our Mutual Friend (Wordsworth Editions, 1997, p. 235). Dickens, writing literary fiction in the 1860s, still uses contractions in dialogue, although he avoids them in his more formal but wickedly tart narrative.

‘We’ll bring him in,’ says Lady Tippins, sportively waving her green fan. ‘Veneering for ever!’
‘We’ll bring him in!’ says Twemlow.
‘We’ll bring him in!’ say Boots and Brewer.
Strictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they should not bring him in, Pocket-Breaches having closed its little bargain, and there being no opposition. However, it is agreed that they must ‘work’ to the last, and that, if they did not work, something indefinite would happen. It is likewise agreed they are all so exhausted with the work behind them, and need to be so fortified for the work before them, as to require peculiar strengthening from Veneering’s cellar.

Now look at Ambrose Parry’s The Way of All Flesh (Canongate Books, 2018). The authors (Parry is the pseudonym used by Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman) don’t avoid contractions completely but the sparing usage does give the dialogue a more archaic feel. Here’s an excerpt from p. 259.

‘I know only that it is a private matter, and I know not to ask further detail. You would be wise to follow suit, unless you would rather Dr Simpson was made aware of your curiosity.’

I doubt anyone would be surprised when I say that the setting is 1847. And so it works. However, if the novel were set in 2019, there’d be a problem. We’d consider those characters unrealistically pompous and the dialogue overblown.

Contractions, pace and voice
The decision to use or avoid contractions is a tool that authors can use to deepen character voice.

Specific contracted forms might enable readers to imagine regional accents, social status and personality traits such as pomposity.

P.G. Wodehouse is a master of dialogue. Bertie Wooster is a wealthy young idler from the 1920s. Jeeves is his savvy valet. The dialogue between the two pops off the page and Wodehouse uses or avoids contractions to make the characters’ voices distinct.

Jeeves’s speech is often uncontracted. This moderates the pace of the dialogue and helps to render his voice as serious, formal, patient and long-suffering.
Bertie’s speech is often contracted. This accelerates the dialogue and helps to render his voice as flighty, foolish and careless.

You can see it in action in The Inimitable Jeeves (Kindle version, Aegitus, 2019).

‘Mr Little tells me that when he came to the big scene in Only a Factory Girl, his uncle gulped like a stricken bull-pup.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Where Lord Claude takes the girl in his arms, you know, and says—’
‘I am familiar with the passage, sir. It is distinctly moving. It was a great favourite of my aunt’s.’
‘I think we’re on the right track.’
‘It would seem so, sir.’
‘In fact, this looks like being another of your successes. I’ve always said, and I always shall say, that for sheer brains, Jeeves, you stand alone. All the other great thinkers of the age are simply in the crowd, watching you go by.’
‘Thank you very much, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction.’

In Oliver Twist (Wordsworth Classics, 1992, p. 8), Dickens contracts is not (ain’t) and them (’em) to indicate the low social standing of Mrs Mann, who runs a workhouse into which orphaned children are farmed.

‘Why, it’s what I’m obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants’ Daffy, when they ain’t well, Mr Bumble,’ replied Mrs Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. ‘I’ll not deceive you, Mr B. It’s gin.’
‘Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs Mann?’ inquired Bumble, following with his eyes the interesting process of mixing.
‘Ah, bless ’em, that I do, dear as it is,’ replied the nurse. ‘I couldn’t see ’em suffer before my very eyes, you know, sir.’

Contractions and their impact on stress and tone
You can use or omit contractions in order to force where the stress falls in a sentence.

Compare the following:

‘I can’t believe you said that,’ Louise said.
‘I cannot believe you said that,’ Louise said.

By not using a contraction in the second example, the stress on ‘cannot’ is harder. The change is subtle but evident. With can’t the mood is one of disbelief tempered with a whining tone; with cannot the disbelief remains but the tone is angry.

Here’s another excerpt from The Way of All Flesh (p. 140). The speaker is a surgeon, Dr Ziegler.

‘I believe it is important to provide the best possible care for the patients regardless of the manner in which they got themselves into their present predicament,’ Ziegler continued. ‘Desperate people are often driven to do desperate things. I have known young women to take their own lives because they could not face the consequences of being with child; and some because they could not face their families discovering it.’

Parry’s dialogue doesn’t just evoke a historical setting. The style of the speech affects the tone too. The voice is compassionate, the mood stoic. However, the lack of contractions renders the tone precise and careful.

On p. 142, Raven – a medical student turned sleuth – talks with the matron about medical charlatanry:

‘Aye, though there is worse,’ said Mrs Stevenson.

Using there is forces the stress on is, and in consequence the tone is resigned. With there’s the stress would have fallen on worse, and we might have assumed a more conspiratorial tone, as if she were about to divulge a secret.

Contractions and narration style
If you’re wondering whether to reserve your contractions for dialogue only, consider who the narrator is.

Let’s revisit Tana French (p. 1). The viewpoint character is a privileged man called Toby, the setting contemporary Dublin. What’s key here is that the narration viewpoint style is first person.

It is Toby who reports the events of the mystery; the narrative voice belongs to him. His narration register is therefore the same as his dialogue register – relaxed, colloquial – and the author, accordingly, retains the contractions in the narrative.

I wasn’t abused as a kid, or bullied in school; my parents didn’t split up or die or have addiction problems or even get into any but the most trivial arguments [...] I know it wasn’t that simple.

For sections written in third-person limited, the narrative voice would likely mirror the viewpoint character’s style of speaking. However, if you shift to a third-person objective viewpoint, where the distance between the characters and the readers is greater, the narrative might handle contractions differently to dialogue. It's a style choice you'll have to make.

Guidance from Chicago
Still a little nervous? Here’s some sensible advice from The Chicago Manual of Style, section 5.105:

‘Most types of writing benefit from the use of contractions. If used thoughtfully, contractions in prose sound natural and relaxed and make reading more enjoyable. Be-verbs and most of the auxiliary verbs are contracted when followed by not: are not–aren’t, was not–wasn’t, cannot–can’t, could not–couldn’t, do not–don’t, and so on. A few, such as ought not–oughtn’t, look or sound awkward and are best avoided. Pronouns can be contracted with auxiliaries, with forms of have, and with some be-verbs. Think before using one of the less common contractions, which often don’t work well in prose, except perhaps in dialogue or quotations.’

Evaluate the sound
Here are three ways to help you evaluate the effectiveness of contracted or contracted-free dialogue:

1. Read the dialogue aloud: Is it difficult or awkward to say it? Does it sound unnatural to your ear? Do you stumble? Does it feel laboured, like you’re forcing the flow? If so, recast it with contractions. If the revised version is smoother, and the integrity of the setting is retained, go with the contracted forms.

2. Ask someone else to read the dialogue: Objectivity is almost impossible when it comes to our own writing. If the plan is that no one but you will ever read your book, write your dialogue the way you want to write it and leave it at that. If, however, you’re writing for readers too, and want to give them the best experience possible, fresh eyes (and ears) will serve you well.

You could even give your readers two versions of the dialogue sample – one with contractions and one without – and ask them which flows better and reads most naturally.

3. Head for YouTube: Dig out examples of speech by people whose backgrounds, environments and historical settings are similar to those of your characters. Watching characters in action will give you confidence to place on the page what can be heard from the mouths of those on the screen.

Summing up
Whether to use contractions or not in dialogue is a style choice. There are no rules. However, a style choice that renders dialogue stilted and unrealistic is not good dialogue.

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.

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FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

In this post ...

What is character backstory?

1. Drip feed the information

​2. Use natural dialogue

3. Interject with narrative reflection

​4. Use other characters to reveal backstory

5. Use sounds, objects or settings as triggers

Summing up

Other resources you might like

About Louise

​Summary of Episode 129

Related resources

Support The Editing Podcast

Music credit

Summary of Episode 126

Resources mentioned in the show

Find out more about Lisa Poisso

Related resources

What’s in this post?

The difference between dialogue and narrative

Using speech snippets as a narrative device

Using free indirect speech as an alternative

Keeping the text lean and engaging

Should the snippets be capitalized?

Summing up

Related resources

​What’s in this post?

What is dialogue?

What is an action beat?

Examples of dialogue with action beats

​Midstream dialogue interruptions: Using dashes

​Avoiding three consecutive punctuation marks​

Summing up

Related line-craft resources

​Listen to find out more about

Music credit

More fiction-skills resources

Case study

Author checklist

Dare Rogers

'Louise uses her expertise to hone a story until it's razor sharp, while still allowing the author’s voice to remain dominant.'

Jeff Carson

'I wholeheartedly recommend her services ... Just don’t hire her when I need her.'

J B Turner

'Sincere thanks for a beautiful and elegant piece of work. First class.'

Ayshe Gemedzhy

'What makes her stand out and shine is her ability to immerse herself in your story.'

Salt Publishing

'A million thanks – your mark-up is perfect, as always.'

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2. Use natural dialogue

4. Use other characters to reveal backstory

Summary of Episode 129

What’s in this post?

Midstream dialogue interruptions: Using dashes

Avoiding three consecutive punctuation marks

Listen to find out more about