5 ways to improve sentences for fiction writers

Writing is a craft, a long, arduous, and sometimes at times euphoric (can I say even religious?) craft. When you flick through any book, it’s baffling to realise the writer consciously placed and arranged every word on every page, they toiled over which adjectives, nouns, and verbs to use, and structured every sentence and paragraph to produce maximum enjoyment for the reader. Writing truly is a labour of love, and of hate. So it’s no wonder writers feel overwhelmed by the editing process, particularly when they’re trying to move away from an amateur style. So without further ado, here are five ways to improve your sentences.

To the chopping block!

This is a call to embrace your inner editor (damn editors, necessary evils). Be ruthless. I mean it. If you’ve been staring at a sentence that just won’t budge, it just won’t change (like a stubborn partner, or bad habit), it’s marginally mocking you, then cut it, slash it, move it around, and if necessary, take it out (omit it - think of Chekhov’s gun). Sentences live and die, they evolve and sometimes they simply won’t comply, but that’s okay. The more you see a piece of writing as a cosmos full of mini cosmos’ entwined with order and chaos, the more you can approach your writing as god-like. You have the control to order the chaos and to destroy unnnecessary things.

‘Necessary’ is the key word. Take out redundant words, repetitions (please don’t over-do ‘ing’ or ‘that’), or character descriptions that add little to the character or the scene. Academic writers are the worst for this offence. You don’t want to write like an academic, do you?

Here are some words I send to editor’s prison:

Very, really, quite, indeed, somewhat, literally, totally, however, therefore, on the one hand, on the other hand, started to, began to (walk away), suddenly, immediately.

Unless your character is a nineteenth century British colonial adventurer whose catchphrase is ‘indeed, somewhat, somewhat…’ then there is no need to incorporate them into your writing. Just because they exist, it doesn’t mean you have to use them.    

We all need purpose

What is your purpose? (No, not in life) To sell, to be marketable, or to be niche?

Following on from the last tip, make sure that there is a purpose for the majority of your sentences. 

Ask yourself some questions like: does it add anything to the storyline? Do you have a flamboyant description that confuses the visual? Do the sentences link cohesively? What is the message you’re trying to convey? Is the tone right for the message?  

If you’re going to add a lengthy description, make sure it does not describe every single detail. The more you describe, the harder it is for the reader to produce the visual. Don’t add description for description’s sake. If you describe someone’s face or posture, make sure to give a purpose to that description; it should return later to show a change or transformation in the character’s disposition or physical or figurative location. 

In addition, (oops, I caved to academic language) as an editor I often come across the use of obscure or popular culture references. While I understand this could be interesting for you as a writer, or for your readers who are aware of the references, remember your sole purpose is to attract new readers and sell books. This means omitting references to British chocolate bars, Japanese anime characters, or bands and songs. References like this can actually alter the tone and flow of your writing. It detracts from the message, or from dialogue, and contributes to the credibility of the writer; most readers won’t seek out the reference you’ve given. If it’s fantasy you’re writing, don’t mention a K-pop band; fantasy genre gives you the licence to create everything in that world, create it. If it’s a crime-thriller, don’t make the protagonist walk away from an explosion unharmed while listening to a podcast by Jordan Peterson. Sounds damn cool, but it’s also damn cliche and distracts the reader. (A suspended word on cliches: use them, don’t overuse them.)

So, how about references like The Beatles, Manchester United FC, Donald J Trump? You’re safe, if these well-known references add to the context and plot without detracting from the story, then go ahead.

Filtering

How do you know you’re reading this? Well, I can only assume up until now you’re reading every word, you’re aware that these words are being written by me, the author, and understood by you, and here’s another word, and another, see this one? 

Shmuel decided to use this as an example of filtering; he felt that it may provide a clear example, because he knew writers love using verbs to describe their character’s actions.

Notice how the verbs increase the narrative distance between the reader and what they’re reading. Sure, this works in meta-narrative, when the author goes out their way to let the reader know that they’re reading. Yet, the purpose of the author is to immerse the reader in the story, not for us to observe the story. We want the reader to participate, not just watch. As the writer, you craft a character from both immersion and observation. Sometimes, story-telling becomes much easier, and lazier, when we observe more than immerse ourselves. This is because we want the reader to see and feel what the characters are doing or feeling with ease and not become clogged up in too much description. In doing so, we achieve the opposite and not only does it distance the reader from the narrative, but affects the quality and credibility of the writing. Being able to notice and rewrite filtered sentences sets professional writers apart from amateur writers.    

Words to avoid: 

Saw, knew, wondered, decided, seemed, felt, spotted, smelled, tasted, realised. 

From:

'After being away for so long, he wondered if anyone would recognise him. He felt nervous to open the door. As he walked in, he smelled the welcoming, homely aroma of bolognaise.’

To:

'He’d been gone for aeons, would anyone recognise him? As he opened the door, the rich aroma of bolognese bubbling away in the kitchen wafted past him, as if sending an invitation to the whole street to come and join.’

Did you feel it? Did you feel the difference between the first and second example? I’ll give you some slack though; filtering usually crops up when writing in third person, so be sure to keep this in mind when writing. 

Feel the syntactic flow

It sounds like an event at a new age festival, but you’d be wrong. Despite being duller, syntactic flow is crucial to bringing narrative to life. Syntax is the formation and arrangement of words, phrases and clauses and their relationship to each other. This means paying attention to the right tense, word order, verb-subject agreement and sentence length. The structure of your sentences should reduce friction with the reader and increase flow. There should be a logic and reason as to why you’ve used one tense over the other, or a reason for going on a rambling tangent. Punctuation, or lack of it and its misuse, can either help or hinder this flow. 

To make the idea of syntax clearer, consider the 3-2-1 structure as described by writer Eliot Chan: 

‘You want to place the most important words or images at the end, so the idea hangs with the reader. Consider examining your work through the lens of The 2-3-1 Rule, where you have your most important part at the end, the second most important at the beginning, and the next most important information in the middle.’  

Here is a portion from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Test yourself and see if you can identify the 3-2-1 structure:

Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales dying—the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring—that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before.

Vocalise it

We take our last tip from the late, great Martin Amis: 

“The process [of editing] is saying the sentence, subvocalising it in your head until there’s nothing wrong it.”

Read scenes out loud as if you produced it for an audiobook. Listen back to the recording. Make notes on which sentences, words, similes and metaphors you trip up on. How does it feel to have a character say one thing over another? Does it captivate you or does it feel hard to follow?

Some people hate listening to their own voice, but it’s a good practice for those who want to see their work from another perspective.