I will begin this second part of the review with the second sentence of EM.
James and Margaret had trolleyed over to see Roger and Helen from Glen Point, about three quarters of an hour's ride from Rosemont where the Mortons lived.
OK, that's not a terrible sentence. But, honestly, we know nothing important about these characters yet. Yes, we have that first long sentence, which tells a lot. But none of the information makes any difference in this part of the novel. Do we need to know, in the first two sentences of a novel, where two of the characters live, where two other characters live, and where they met?
"Roger's ready to admit it," confessed that young man.
If we ignore that awkward speech tag, it's not bad. But the next sentence is so terrible. It was painful to read.
"When you have an aunt drop right down on your door mat, so to speak, after your family has been hunting her for twenty years, and when you find that you've been knowing her daughter, your own cousin, pretty well for two months it does make the regular go-to-school life that you and I used to lead look quite prosy."
Not only is that sentence too long, but it is even more confusing than the first sentence. This is an information dump, people. That means that too much information is given at the beginning of a story. There are many ways to introduce backstory in a novel. It's hard to think of a worse method than the one employee here: to have someone tell a friend about it in one long sentence. All right, there is one worse way-- to have Roger start by saying, "as you know..." before the dump.
And now is the time to talk about speech tags. You know "he said", "she said". Don't use them if you can avoid it, and, when you do, you should almost always use either "said" or "asked." I know all the arguments. That it's boring, repetitive, not descriptive enough. For the majority of my life I have been over-using speech tags. What caused me to stop? The general consensus of "real" writers is that it brands a writer as amateur and is annoying to read.
Here is my little list of speech tags and things used as speech tags (names mostly excluded for brevity and convenience) from this 2100-word chapter, in the order in which they appear.*
decided, confessed. suggested, concluded, said, went on, continued, carried on the story, guessed, said, and Roger nodded his head gleefully, said, remarked, said, laughed recalling the bulldog's alarming face which ill agreed with his mild name and general behavior, went on, roared, and he kicked his legs with enthusiasm, asked, said, suggested, approved, assented, James completed the sentence for her, a voice came through the screen door, declared, responded seriously, commented, asserted suddenly, interposed quickly, explained to the new arrivals, approved, inquired, announced, asked, commended, quoted, sighed, agreed, decided, commented, retorted, threatened, said somewhat sharply, begged, continued, exclaimed, defended her idea, retorted, said magnanimously, retorted
Wow. I didn't count the number of different speech tags, but feel free to do so and tell me.
Apart from the tags, we learn about an aunt, an uncle, and a grandfather, but there is little about the people who I assumed to be main characters. The dialogue also just feels awkward to me. But the worst part is the randomness of what they say. And the introduction of more and more characters. known mostly by name alone, when there is no character development of the main characters.
In the first chapter!
James and Margaret had trolleyed over to see Roger and Helen from Glen Point, about three quarters of an hour's ride from Rosemont where the Mortons lived.
OK, that's not a terrible sentence. But, honestly, we know nothing important about these characters yet. Yes, we have that first long sentence, which tells a lot. But none of the information makes any difference in this part of the novel. Do we need to know, in the first two sentences of a novel, where two of the characters live, where two other characters live, and where they met?
"Roger's ready to admit it," confessed that young man.
If we ignore that awkward speech tag, it's not bad. But the next sentence is so terrible. It was painful to read.
"When you have an aunt drop right down on your door mat, so to speak, after your family has been hunting her for twenty years, and when you find that you've been knowing her daughter, your own cousin, pretty well for two months it does make the regular go-to-school life that you and I used to lead look quite prosy."
Not only is that sentence too long, but it is even more confusing than the first sentence. This is an information dump, people. That means that too much information is given at the beginning of a story. There are many ways to introduce backstory in a novel. It's hard to think of a worse method than the one employee here: to have someone tell a friend about it in one long sentence. All right, there is one worse way-- to have Roger start by saying, "as you know..." before the dump.
And now is the time to talk about speech tags. You know "he said", "she said". Don't use them if you can avoid it, and, when you do, you should almost always use either "said" or "asked." I know all the arguments. That it's boring, repetitive, not descriptive enough. For the majority of my life I have been over-using speech tags. What caused me to stop? The general consensus of "real" writers is that it brands a writer as amateur and is annoying to read.
Here is my little list of speech tags and things used as speech tags (names mostly excluded for brevity and convenience) from this 2100-word chapter, in the order in which they appear.*
decided, confessed. suggested, concluded, said, went on, continued, carried on the story, guessed, said, and Roger nodded his head gleefully, said, remarked, said, laughed recalling the bulldog's alarming face which ill agreed with his mild name and general behavior, went on, roared, and he kicked his legs with enthusiasm, asked, said, suggested, approved, assented, James completed the sentence for her, a voice came through the screen door, declared, responded seriously, commented, asserted suddenly, interposed quickly, explained to the new arrivals, approved, inquired, announced, asked, commended, quoted, sighed, agreed, decided, commented, retorted, threatened, said somewhat sharply, begged, continued, exclaimed, defended her idea, retorted, said magnanimously, retorted
Wow. I didn't count the number of different speech tags, but feel free to do so and tell me.
Apart from the tags, we learn about an aunt, an uncle, and a grandfather, but there is little about the people who I assumed to be main characters. The dialogue also just feels awkward to me. But the worst part is the randomness of what they say. And the introduction of more and more characters. known mostly by name alone, when there is no character development of the main characters.
In the first chapter!
*That should be a colon, not a period, but I didn't want to make any of the sentences I wrote in this post longer than the quotations! If you don't count the paragraph where I listed the speech tags, I think I succeeded.
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