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Responsible Reviewing

September 21, 2017

The internet has given everybody a voice.

It’s also provided numerous mediums in which to use it.

One of those mediums is the forum of critique – reviewing books, movies, etc.

Art will always be interpreted subjectively. You don’t need to love – or even like – something just because other people do. That’s fine – we all have different tastes. But criticism should be valid, justifiable, and constructive. Unfortunately, this often isn’t the case. It’s surprising the amount of biased reviews that are out there – reviews driven by a personal agenda.

So what exactly are we looking at?

Okay, let’s look at reviews as they apply to books (although this could easily extend to other mediums of art) …

The Troll Review
Somebody is scathing just for the sake of driving a reaction. Often, the troll review will be outrageous, as it will try to provoke responses. There’s no merit in this review. If you can recognize the troll, stay away. Don’t feed it.

 
The ‘Witty’ Deconstruction
An analysis using humour (particularly acerbic humour) that dissects the book. The dissection itself could have merit, but it seems the reviewer wants to prove how funny and incisive they can be. While some might laud these reviews, if you really stop to think about them, you’ll see that they can be mean-spirited and cruel – sometimes, without the reviewer even realizing it themselves. It’s tantamount to ridicule.
 

The ‘I Don’t Get It’
Somebody reviews something they’d never read recreationally, and then criticizes it on the basis that they don’t get it, or it hasn’t piqued their interest. It’s like giving a historical romance to somebody who specializes in science fiction. Reviewers should abstain from reviewing something if they don’t feel they can invest in it for what it is. It shouldn’t start so far back because the reviewer doesn’t like that particular genre.

 
The Misinterpretation
Close behind the ‘I Don’t Get it’ is the reviewer who misinterprets the book – be it a scene, scenes, or the whole book – and then criticizes it through a raft of misapprehensions. If you’ve read the book these reviews are bashing, you might frown, and think, No, that’s not what happened at all! But the reviewer has misunderstood, misread, or misinterpreted what’s going on; or is clueless and attacks as a diversion from realising their own cluelessness.

 
The Early Abandonment
Somebody reads only a small portion of a book, can’t get into it for whatever reason, then flicks it. That’s fine as a practice, but it’s not a good foundation for a review. A review should be of the material as a whole, because who knows what might’ve happened the page after the book was abandoned? A review which reads, I read fifty pages but couldn’t get into it so I dumped it. One star might’ve been, if the whole book was read, A slow beginning evolves into a compelling thriller! Three stars.

Undoubtedly, there’s hybrids of these reviews, but these are the principles of bad reviewing, and these examples should give you an idea of how they’re unfair on material, and not judging it on its merit. This is not to excuse bad writing. It’s out there. But too many reviews criticise through the filter of some prejudice – intentionally or not – as these examples demonstrate.

Whenever you critique anything, you need to try empathise with the author’s intent, understand where they’re trying to get to, and then look at what’s working and not working in achieving those objectives. If something’s not working, the criticism needs to transcend personal taste, e.g. I didn’t like this character because he was stupid. Maybe that character’s meant to be stupid, so is that criticism valid? But if the character was stupid, and his actions unbelievable, that could warrant criticism.

If you’re going to write a review – particularly a negative review – think about how you would feel if you received that review, and that should give you a good indication of whether you’re being fair and balanced or not.

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Breaking Down Content: Part II

September 7, 2017

In the last blog, we looked at breaking down content so that whatever message the content as a whole was intended to deliver – be that the plot of a novel, the biography of a subject, the information of a topic, or the guide of a self-help book – it did so logically, causally, and effectively. It is not just a spill, as some might think. You don’t just dump what’s in your head onto the page. There has to be purpose in how the content builds. This week, we’re going to take the examples posed in the last blog and break down the first five chapters of each, demonstrating how we can now use each component to build the overall message. In one column, we’ll list what happens in the chapter, and in the adjacent column we’ll list the purpose of what’s happening in that chapter and how it contributes to building the overall content. It’s important that in this latter column we don’t see repetition. As an aside, I’m also going to run with several topics with which I’m unfamiliar (e.g. German Shepherds as a breed of dog, and emerging from domestic abuse to rebuild my life and show others how they can do so also) because it’ll show that no matter how little you think you know, you can compartmentlise what you do know and write to build an effective and compelling message. Conversely, if you know lots, well, all the better. So here goes …
Premise – Fiction A wife tries to clear herself after she is accused of her husband’s murder.
Chapter Synopsis		Chapter Purpose
Chapter 1: We meet Jane Smith and her husband, Jack Smith. They wake up, go through their morning routine, and – just as she’s leaving for work – Jane says she’ll be home late because the boss is making everybody do overtime.		Introduction to our characters and our setting. Alternatively, you can leap right into the meat of the story. Personally, I like a bit of dithering because it shows our characters and their world BEFORE whatever happens next.
Chapter 2: Jane at work. She has a domineering, sexist boss, Donald. She also works with her best friend Marcia. They have lunch, chat. At the end of the work day, Donald makes a pass at Jane. She rebukes him and leaves, instead of staying back late.		A lot of this is circumstance, and continuing to introduce our protagonist’s character – and her world – to the reader. We now know she has a best friend and sexist boss. (Presumably, they will become part of the plot.)
Chapter 3: Jane comes home from work, surprising her husband, Jack, who’s making an intimate Skype call with his mistress. After confronting Jack and arguing violently, Jane charges from the house.		We now unravel Jane’s world and give her motive. Note also the causality: Jack made this call because he thought Jane would be home late; Jane is home early because her boss did something that compelled her to leave; getting home early, Jack is caught. It’s all cause and effect, rather than random chance driving the plot.
Chapter 4: Jane goes to a bar, nurses a drink for an hour. Then she goes to Marcia’s. Marcia puts her up for the night and they dissect her relationship with Jack. Jane decides it’s over.		Further plotting. The hour Jane spends in a bar might later become time for which she can’t account. (We’d write that she sat in a corner, away from prying eyes and CCTV, so nobody can verify if she was there after she ordered the first drink.) What we’re doing is foreshadowing her lack of alibi.
Chapter 5: In the morning, Jane goes home and discovers her husband, bludgeoned to death, in the kitchen. She goes into shock. Calls the police. When the police arrive, things start looking bad for her – neighbours heard them violently arguing, neighbours saw her charge out, etc.		We now have set our plot in motion – Jane is accused of her husband’s murder. We also build suspicion of her. It looks as if she’ll be accused of this crime. What will she do?
We could keep going on with this – Jane being taken into questioning, Jack’s death falling in the time between when Jane came home from work and when she showed up at Marcia’s. We get a little bit of repetition here in terms of introducing and establishing our character’s universe, but it’s always new detail – husband, domesticity, work, boss, best friend, etc. Some fiction authors like to repeat themselves to make sure the reader gets it. Unless you’re trying to establish a conceit – e.g. the everyday routine of an everyman – once is enough. Keep the story moving forward. And in blocking it out this way, we continue moving it forward.
Premise – Biography (Autobiography, Memoir, etc.) The story of Joe Blow, who rises from humble beginnings, becomes a councilman and grows to be invaluable to his local community.
Chapter Synopsis		Chapter Purpose
Chapter 1: We meet Joe Blow as he is now.		Introduces the reader to Joe Blow as a person and councilman. As an aside, many biographies will begin at the epoch of their subject’s life, then reflect. So perhaps we begin here when he’s is being given a lifetime of service award.
Chapter 2: Look at Joe Blow’s parents, how they came here from Scandinavia, and had a son.		Shows where Joe came from – we immediately get a sense of what sort of background Joe has come from. This offers context. We understand he’s working class.
Chapter 3: An examination of Joe Blow’s upbringing.		Shows Joe Blow’s early life, and the events that begin to shape him as the person he will eventually become. This is important because we get an idea of why he becomes the person he does, i.e. what his drivers are.
Chapter 4: Joe, as an adult, goes to tertiary education, where he meets Diane. They go out and marry. Earning little, they rent a rundown flat. The landlord often ignores their requests.		Shows Joe, who now has responsibilities,and struggles to get by, and is thwarted by dealing with unfairness where people aren’t held accountable.
Chapter 5: Joe graduates and gets a job managing a small printing business in the local community. He hears the grievances of everyday people. He wonders what he can do to help. Diane suggests he run for council.		Sets Joe upon the path for which he’ll be known.
And on you go again. Just like a novel employing a traditional three-act structure, there’s a story to tell here – it’s not just about Joe’s life in its entirety. Lots of autobiographies/biographies make that mistake. Just tell everything. But that means there’s no story which frames events. In this case, this story is about Joe’s life as a councilman, rising from humble beginnings to receiving an award. We see his life through the filter of this journey.
Premise – Nonfiction (Topical) Why the German Shepherd is the ideal dog breed for a pet.
Chapter Synopsis		Chapter Purpose
Chapter 1: Introduce the German Shepherd as a breed, offer its history, and show how it’s evolved over the years.		Introduces the reader to the dog breed and gives a quick overview of the dog’s history, where it comes from, in what functions it was used, etc.
Chapter 2: Why the German Shepherd makes a good pet whether you’re single or have a family.		Champions the cause of why the reader should own a German Shepherd over any other dog. This might mention stuff like they’re social, they’re good with kids, and they’re excellent guard dogs.
Chapter 3: Looks at the German Shepherd puppy and how to best integrate it into your lifestyle.		Shows the reader what they’ll be required to do, and needs like food and training. As a sidenote, you could break this into several chapters if need be. Alternatively, you could break the chapter down into sub-categories using headings and subheadings, e.g. social training (taking the dog out, how it plays with others, etc.), recreational training (teaching it to fetch, etc.), and necessary training (toilet training, seeing that it doesn’t bark at everything, etc.).
Chapter 4: Delves into the German Shepherd as a young adult.		Shows what sort of dog it should grow into, how it should be behaving, and how its needs evolve.
Chapter 5: The German Shepherd’s health.		Looks at health issues the dog might face, what you need to look out for, etc.
Here, we’re breaking down the case for owning a German Shepherd into simple components, and what each will require. The components themselves don’t repeat (although there might be some basic overlap). As a reference, it would be brilliant for a reader – they know immediately where to look to find what they need. As a guide, it gives them a good overview of the dog.
Premise – Nonfiction (Inspirational) How to emerge from an abusive relationship and rebuild your life. (For the purpose of this outline, I will pretend I am a woman named ‘Nancy’.)
Chapter Synopsis		Chapter Purpose
Chapter 1: Recap meeting and marriage to my husband, Marcus. The early years were good. But as the marriage went on, he drank too much. Then became abusive. He started to hit me. Finally, after almost killing me, I got out.		This chapter serves as a story in itself – showing how the relationship started out so well, and it seemed a great match, but then it slowly began to unravel, until I’d had enough.
Chapter 2: Looks at talking to counsellors, being put up in a shelter, and doubting my decision, but also knowing I was recontextualising what I was going through because I was afraid to face the future. Realising that I needed to move forward.		An important chapter that will empathise with readers, speak to their doubts, but show that the only course is to move forward.
Chapter 3: The first practicality – dealing with immediate finances.		Poses that instead of dealing with emotional baggage first, the important thing is to start moving forward. Working out how to survive on what immediate income there is, given it may take a while to get anything from the separation – particularly if the husband is belligerent. This is possibly one of the first things people in this situation think: how will I survive alone?
Chapter 4: The next practicality – finding a place to live.		Looks at how to find a place to live on limited finances, and how this is just a transitional abode – somewhere to live until everything is sorted out.
Chapter 5: Working out how to deal with emotional baggage.		Now that the practicalities are out of the way, looks at techniques to deal with the emotional gamut to move forward. This chapter might be broken down into various sub-categories, or perhaps this is when we start offering whatever technique we’ve formulated and which we’re going to offer to other people.
Again, we continue to break down the needs of what such a book would require, avoiding repetition (and waffle) so we create a complete guide that looks at everything that might be required. There’s a logic to it. It’s not random. It’s an instructional and chronological guide – one that anybody in the same situation could follow – to tackle moving forward. The difficulty with books like this is the tendency to regress into memoir. While it’s fine to use experiences to contextualise circumstances, if it delves too readily into biography, it dilutes whatever message it might be trying to deliver because it actually becomes about something else. It’s an important distinction – is the book intended purely as a memoir, where the author hopes the reader learns from their experiences? Or is it self-help, where techniques are offered to guide the reader through their issues? As it is, hopefully, these four examples demonstrate how content can be broken down and ordered to deliver an overriding message.

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Breaking Down Content: Part I

August 24, 2017

Lots of writers look for a formula in writing, e.g.

• a novel should be 80,000 words
• each chapter should be 2,000 words
• 80,000/2,000 = 40 chapters.

And then they’ll try write to that template. The problem is that in any given chapter, you might wrap up what needs to be said in 700 words. What do you do for the next 1,300 words? Some writers will waffle to pad everything out. This isn’t even good in theory. If I was telling you a story and finished it in seven minutes, but then talked at you for another thirteen minutes about the same thing, would you be entertained or bored?

Mathematical breakdowns do not apply in writing. A story – and a book, for that matter – is as long as it needs to be. So is a chapter. And a paragraph. And a sentence.

This doesn’t mean your 90,000-word book should be one long paragraph – although it can, if it justifies it. But that’s the qualification: justification. Every (narrative) selection needs a justification as to why it exists as it does. Many writers don’t contemplate that. They just write where the writing takes them.

Consider this exercise:

The Premise: you come home and stumble upon a dead body in the kitchen.
– Write out the scene, but don’t use more than four words in any sentence.
– Now try the same scene, but don’t use any less than four words in any sentence.

How do the pieces compare? What tone do the short sentences communicate compared to the longer sentences? It’s worth thinking about, because it helps you to understand the shape of writing, and the purpose that brevity or length can communicate beyond what the words themselves are saying. It also helps to understand that content should justify its own length, and how it’s delivered.

Once you begin to understand the small building blocks, you can start looking at the big building blocks, e.g. the chapters. Some authors struggle with this. They understand their concept as this big blob. For example, the blob might be any of these:

• Fiction: a wife tries to clear herself after she is accused of her husband’s murder
• Biography: the story of Joe Blow, who rises from humble beginnings, becomes a councilman and grows to be invaluable to his local community
• Nonfiction (Topical): why the German Shepherd is the ideal dog breed for a pet
• Nonfiction (Inspirational): How to emerge from an abusive relationship and rebuild your life.

These examples demonstrate content as a concept. They’re whole – that’s the blob. This then leaves you with two questions:

• How do I break that concept down?
• How does the breakdown deliver the message I want to share? (Note: the message might be the plot of the story, the life of a biography, or the message of a nonfiction fiction.)

The first and most basic thing to understand is that chapters don’t all need to be a relatively equal length. They can be. But they don’t need to be. They can be as short or long as needed, and written in whatever form helps deliver your concept. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time alternates between traditional narrative and puzzles, which helps define the 15-year-old protagonist as somebody who is different (the blurb suggests he might have Asperger’s or a form of autism, but the author has denied this and just says he’s different).

Writers can gravitate towards compartmentalizing through length as it helps them impose order on their content. But a more efficient way of understanding narrative and structure is compartmentalization through subject, i.e. What will each chapter be about? And, following that question is this one: How does each chapter contribute to my content overall?

You could outline the sum of your content this way. Some authors do. Others prefer to write on-the-fly, but even if it seems as if they’re making it up as they go along, they would be following a similar guide in their heads. Others might outline, but if the content evolves into something else, follow it wherever it takes them. But in each case there should be a purpose. A direction. A plan. This would help segment the content into a logically causal narrative that builds to deliver the content as a whole and, thus, whatever message the author is trying to impart.

Nonfiction would be treated as little different – especially if you were focusing on some sort of biography, e.g. autobiography or memoir, a biography, or a family or community history. You would break it down into what each chapter was trying to do and how it contributed to the overall story. If it was something topical, you’d look at each facet, and how that built the bigger picture.

A useful tool in planning out any form of writing is to bullet point it by topic. But don’t do it chronologically. Try it this way:

• Write down where your content begins
• Write down where it ends
• Write what you think is the middle of your content (this may change later)
• Write down a point that comes between the start and the middle
• Write down a point that comes between the middle and the end
• Continue to break it down, adding ‘middle’ points (between the other points) until you’ve fleshed out your content and covered everything you need to cover
• Look at the chronology, and see if anything needs to be shifted, anything is repeated, and if anything is redundant
• Note: Don’t repeat yourself. And treat these points as fluid, e.g. you might move them to better satisfy the structure.

This should give you a rough outline, cover what needs to be said, and build the structure of how that content is going to be delivered.

On the next blog, we’ll look at a more detailed chapter breakdown to help outline whatever you’re writing.

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What Goes in the Pot …

August 10, 2017

Sitting outside the Busybird Studio are two bits of signage (right) – one is a placard of the business; the second is a chalkboard, which we use to spruik upcoming events.

Not too long ago, an elderly man wandered in to query us about reprinting an old family history. Once we finished talking about the particulars, he asked about the event being advertised on the chalkboard – at that time it was Novelling. We explained that Novelling broke down the craft of writing a novel into simple, understandable components.

‘What’s there to know?’ the old fella asked. ‘Doesn’t it all just come from here?’ He held both hands up to his temples.

That seems a popular misconception from anybody who doesn’t write: all you have to do is sit down, and translate your imagination onto the page. It’ll all come quickly. Easily. And, naturally, it’ll all make sense.

But why should it?

Outside of the presumption, why should it make any sense? It’s tantamount to suggesting you can bake a chocolate cake simply by guessing what ingredients are required, throwing them into the mix, and then shoving it into oven. What do you think the result would be?

Writing is hard.

Writing something good is harder still.

Just as baking a cake would require a precise measure of ingredients, a strict methodology in how they’re combined, and a design in how it’s baked, writing requires much more than just an imagination. An imagination will give you ideas. That’s it. Staying with our cooking analogy, it would be the equivalent to the thought, I’d like to bake a chocolate cake today. From there, it requires technique, a plan, and diligence. Anything less, and who knows what the result would be?

You could fluke it.

Likelier, you wouldn’t because just as when you approach any endeavor, you need to know and understand how it functions, what’s required, and what’s needed to excel. You wouldn’t expect to walk into a kitchen and be a master chef, or onto a tennis court and expect to be a champion, or into a surgeon’s theatre and expect to know how to operate.

Writing is no different.

You need to understand how structure works, what POVs are, how to plot (and subplot), what VOICE is, how to make characterisations dimensional, what arcs are, how to design and layer your world so that it’s believable, how to avoid pitfalls such as exposition, show versus tell … and this list goes on and on.

Although many might think writing is little more than a hobby, a fun thing to do with bits of your imagination firing away and wanting to tell a story, it – as a craft – deserves respect.

Especially if you want to give it your best shot.

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Issues in Writing: Part III

July 27, 2017

So here we are for our last blog on issues we commonly find in writing.

This week, we’re going to look at some common structural issues – these can range from a single word to the way information as a whole is delivered.

It should be noted that some of these might be considered subjective, but see what you think.

 
Story Openings
Imagine you opened a story this way …

There’s only the emptiness now, a longing that tears at me. Every night is the same. I wish that, come the morning, things could be the way they were. When I wake, there’s that instant of hope, of what was, before realisation hits.
   The rain hammers the roof as I try to sleep. I toss; the bed is too big – too empty. On the drawer, the clock radio’s neon numbers glow at me: 1.12am. I sit up and stare at the open doorway.

We want to hook readers from our first sentence, from our first word, so what’s the issue here?

The opening paragraph is disembodied. Do we know where we are? Do we know who’s talking? Obviously, we don’t know these things from the beginning of any story – the narrative eases us into the world where we discover this information. But we should get a sense of grounding. This floating, melodramatic opening offers us nothing but mood. That can be used a narrative device, but here it’s tonally empty.

The story would begin much more logically from the second paragraph.

 
Causality
Why do things happen in your story?

Detective Gallo paused in the middle of the room. The blood splotched on the carpet was an inkblot open to interpretation. An executive chair – a tailored ergonomic recliner – lay upended, surrounded by paperwork. The mess told its own story: the victim fled for the door, the axe came down on his back; he fell, knocked the chair over, clutched at the desk and dragged everything down with him. On the floor, he bled out, and died gaping at the line of abstract paintings – faces disjointed, aghast – that hung on one wall. Minutes later, the secretary returned from lunch – startled, the killer escaped through the window.
   What had the killer been looking for?
   Detective Gallo shook his head. He yanked open the door, then stopped as he heard rustling. His eyes narrowed. An envelope had slid out from behind one of the paintings, poking out from behind the bottom left corner.

Causality should drive the events in your stories. That means each effect should have a cause. In this above example, instead of the detective just blindly finding this clue, how about he searches the room (cause) which leads to him finding the clue (the effect)?

Think about how the events in your story are driven. Yes, life – and events in stories – can be subject to chance. But don’t forget what bestselling author Tom Clancy said: ‘The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.’ We can accept that in real life, we might randomly bump into a friend we haven’t seen for ten years, who just happens to give us a bit of life-changing information, like a job has opened up just as we were looking for work. In a story, though? It all seems a bit contrived.

 
Narrative Evolution
How do we get from one sentence to next?

The rain hammers the roof and echoes through my apartment. The bed is too big, a spaciousness that feels wrong.

In this example, how does the sentence go from talking about the rain to the narrator now explaining that his bed is too big? There’s no evolution. They’re just details shoved in to develop setting and mood.

An organic evolution – one the reader doesn’t question, and trusts to take them from Point A to B to C, etc. – is pivotal in good writing.

The rain hammers the roof and echoes through my apartment. I toss as I try to find sleep. The bed is too big, a spaciousness that feels wrong.

 
Show, Don’t Tell
As writers, we would’ve all heard this at one time or another – show, don’t tell.

Bob was so angry.

This tells us how Bob is feeling. He’s angry. But how could we show this? What are some of the characteristics of anger? Some simple answers are a reddened face, a bulging vein in the neck, a tightening fist, etc. Through showing, this creates a visual for the reader that’s much more evocative than just telling them something.

 
Exposition
Another form of telling is exposition – when we give the reader all the details they require so that they can then move forward to understand the story.

Bob let himself in through the front door and slumped into his favourite recliner. He wasn’t sure what to do next. His wife had left him for another man, circumstances with which he was struggling to cope. He’d stopped eating, drank too much, and vacillated between fits of sadness and anger. He didn’t know how to go on.

Here, we’ve talked at the reader to deliver all the details of Bob’s life so that they reader has context to move forward with the story.

But how could we deliver this information without relying on exposition? The narrative tells us Bob’s drinking too much. We could show that by Bob hitting the liquor cabinet as soon as he gets home, or beer bottles piled on the kitchen sink. We could show sadness through tears; anger might be expressed by Bob slamming the refrigerator door. The relationship demise might be shown through torn pictures – it might not expressly suggest she ran off with another man, but a picture with a face gouged out strongly suggests that the break up was acrimonious.

There’s lots of ways to show this information. Yes, sometimes, we’ll need exposition; we’ll need to outright tell the reader what they need to know so they have context to move through the story. But other times, we can show circumstances through clever and descriptive narrative. It mightn’t always surrender every precise detail but, sometimes, casting a hook to keep the reader reading isn’t such a bad thing.

 
Redundancies

The dry cleaner was situated on the north side of town.

With tautologies, we have two words serving the same purpose. Here, we simply have a word that’s not required – in this case ‘situated’.

This sentence could easily be:

The dry cleaner was on the north side of town.

 
Condense

Ashamed to stay at school, he quit. He then resigned from trying to get anywhere in life.

There’s nothing wrong with this passage. But think about the way words flow, the way sentences relate, the way they unfold. There’s a nice symmetry here between the quitting and the resignation, and the sentences here could be condensed to show that interrelationship.

Ashamed to stay at school, he quit, then resigned from trying to get anywhere in life.

 
Things Implied

We don’t need to spell everything out for the reader.

He stopped and opened the boot of his car; I leaned against a telephone pole, watching.

Do we need to be told that the character here is watching what’s happening? We can only know that the other character has stopped and opened the boot of his car because the narrator has narrated it for us, which means they must be watching. It’s implied. So the ‘watching’ could be chopped. You might only include it if there’s a specific reason you want the reader to be aware it’s happening.

 
Specifics

Pulling the chocolate bar from his pocket, he makes a carnivorous sound and tears open the wrapper.

What is a ‘carnivorous’ sound? Even if we were more direct – e.g. ‘he makes a sound like a dog savouring a bone’ – what exactly does that mean? If I’d never owned a dog, I wouldn’t know. Equally, I don’t know what a ‘carnivorous sound’ is. Think of specifics that describe to the reader what exactly is occurring.

 
Word Choice

Exhausted, I got up from the floor.

We already looked at substituting adverb/verb combinations with stronger verbs. But this is a rule that applies to any form of writing in general. Look for the right word. It doesn’t have to be a BIG word. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just needs to be right. In our example, what could fit better here?

Exhausted, I hauled myself up from the floor.

 
That’s it. Hopefully, you’ve found our three-part series on issues on writing helpful.

It’s amazing what you’ll begin to see in your writing once you learn about issues. Look over some of your old work. Attack it with fresh eyes and a newly informed mind and see how you go.

Happy writing.

And revision.

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