The core capability of creating the artistic masterpiece
seldom gets appreciated. What actually does is the thought which has been
depicted in the artistic creation.
Thought is important. Write it down completely and have your
first draft ready. Even most successful writers have several mistakes in their
first draft so expect to have the same in yours also. The next step is editing.
Wear the cap of editor and frisk every word for mistakes. Editor
is the person who has a command over the language but lacks the desire to
create something new. So the perfect job for him is to help writer correcting
his draft.
Writer should review his work before submitting it to
editor.
Review to ensure your writing says exactly what you have
written it to. It must make sense even if it is piece of fiction.
You have written on the topic you are aware of; now research
to verify the correctness of it.
Rewrite long sentences to make them short.
Remember the fundamental rule – Don’t tell the story; show
it. Underline the narration in your story.
Rewrite that to have dialogues spoken by characters and move
the story. Minimize the narration to have it at the beginning to provide the
back ground of the story or to take reader in the flash back. If it has lots of
flash back, try to replace it with characters and dialogues.
Whether it is fiction or non-fiction, you will always try to
make some point or communicate some thought. Avoid mentioning it more than
twice in the entire story. Respect the reader; trust his intelligence and resist
your craving to explain no matter how complex point you are making.
The most fatal, difficult to figure out mistake is of POV
(Point of View). Don’t jump POV in one scene. Don’t ever write what cannot be
observed from the POV of the character you are writing from. Consider the given
example:
He walked down the memory lane and remembered all the good
time he had. Oh all that had lost! I
cannot let tears cover my blue eyes as these eyes had given her love to feel
entire sky is for her. She promised me to never leave me alone in this nasty
world.
Focus on the sentence – ‘I cannot let tears cover my blue
eyes…’ One cannot see the color of one’s eyes even in interior monologues. This
is a POV mistake. If you are switching POV, mention the explicit break by
- ***- ***- and then write the next scene.
Your story should have the optimum proportion of time spent
on characters, events etc. based on their importance. Milkman selling milk;
maid cleaning floors; watchman, gardener doing their respective jobs will be
part of your story but if you are investing time on any of these characters
that means they will play significant role in some part of it. Remember to
engage reader on the character only if it is really significant.
Review your dialogues and cut before they grow to become
speech if you really don’t want it to be. Keep changing the turn of the
dialogues like tennis ball. It helps in retaining the energy flowing through
the dialogues and keeps it tied with the reader.
Even grammatically correct sentences sometimes confuse
writers for aesthetic placement of words. The solution is to speak it loud; if
it doesn’t sound good, rewrite and again read it, speak it loud unless it
sounds good.
And she combed her hair on the way to office. And he came
out of office to smoke. She fluttered her eyes in order to seduce him. There
are so many habits of our characters. But do keep a check on repeating the same
words to make your story look real. There are other instances of onomatopoeia
writers tend to write to make readers feel what actually is happening. Review
to minimize these effects.
Try not to repeat fancy words, idioms, adverbs, figure of
speeches, sex scenes, action scenes unless it is really necessary.
There are so many guidelines. There can never be strict
rules in writing because time has proved that once the rules are broken,
somewhere history is written and the outcome is really worth all the efforts of
writing. All these should be left on the wisdom of writer which rule to follow
and which he dares to break in orders to create history that will eventually
force more rules to be written.
The last one is to make your writing readable. Readers do
select the work of notable writers but even more they prefer to choose the book
that has enough white space suitably broken paragraphs, easy words that don’t
force reader to refer dictionary, smaller sentences that doesn’t force reader
to reread.
Go on write, review, rewrite and achieve the masterpiece.
Remember, there is nothing worth presenting to the world that have not been
worked on to make it presentable. In writing, it’s editing.
Seeds of thoughts:
Read the work of notable writers and observe whether they
have followed these rules. Complete your story, and then rewrite is following
these wherever applicable.
- Amit Roop
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