#autocrit

The Power of Words

First to the front-line in backing up your content delivery are what we call Power Words. Well known in marketing circles, these words have an automatic impact on the human mind. This could be down to onomatopoeia, the forceful or strange nature of a word’s pronunciation, or simply the natural imagery a word conjures.

Words such as intense, obliterate, breathtaking, and slyly would all fall under the banner of Power Words.

In fiction, power words are a useful way of condensing concepts and feelings into a single word that elicits a strong emotional response. After all, the more concise and clear your writing is, the better it is for your readers. And as the number of these words increases throughout your novel, the emotional landscape of your book begins to take shape – like some long-forgotten island emerging from a blanket of fog – forming the basis of how your reader feels as they move through your story.

At AutoCrit, we regularly research and inspect the emotional foundations of all kinds of novels. See if you can guess what kind of stories these are:

The above is, of course, a horror novel. A heavy blanket of words rooted in fear takes prime position here.

Here’s another:

You can probably guess that this particular novel is a romantic drama, with a heavy dose of lust-based language backed up by encouragement (a staple of any involving dramatic arc) and, of course, fear – reflecting the fear of loss, or missing a chance, that so many romantic narratives rely on.

And a final example:

At the forefront here is an almost equal combination of the forbidden, encouragement, and fear – backed up by a large sprinkle of lust and greed. This is, of course, a mystery thriller – Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, to be exact!

Looking at these charts, it’s almost too easy to place the kind of novel to which you’d expect them to belong, and that’s reflective of the importance of proper power word management. The content could be the same, but a horror novel simply wouldn’t feel like a horror novel if the language were primarily rooted in a safe or encouraging emotional space. Would it?

But hold on just a moment, because we’re about to go deeper...

The Power of Words

The truth is that even the most innocuous words are essential building blocks of storytelling, and therefore deserve the same level of scrutiny in your finished work.

The word dragon, for example, is unusual enough that you could instantly know it is more likely to appear throughout a fantasy novel than it would in, say, a modern day spy thriller. The same could be said for the power word kill – much more likely to show up in horror than romance. That’s an easy one.

But what about a word as simple as just? 

Usually viewed as a filler word that can easily be deleted during editing, something as simple as just can actually be used to great effect in different genres – that is to say it does have a place.

Take a look at these examples, where we’ve compared our use of the word just in a horror novel to what we would expect, through extensive research, to see in books of other genres.

First up, fantasy:

Compared to the content of an average best-selling fantasy novel, AutoCrit recommends we remove 18 instances of our use of the word just. 

The fantasy genre is one that relies most on its world-building and the visceral experience of the narrative, so we’re less likely to see simple, common words being used to subtle effect. That’s not to say such a thing doesn’t exist within fantasy, but it is more likely to happen in romance, which we see here:

In romance, our use of just appears to be completely within expectations. There is a good reason for this: Romance often deals with human emotion and relationships, sporting increased amounts of dialogue. Naturally, people will use filler as they speak, so words like just are going to be more common here.

But since we’re writing a horror story, what about comparing our manuscript to best-selling horror?

Far fewer than the 18 removals recommended under fantasy, in horror it’s recommended we remove only 3. This is, again, reflective of the difference in base language between the genres – horror can very effectively use the word just to demean characters or increase horrific effect by seemingly playing down the shocking nature of occurrences.

Your story’s content often helps to dictate the language used – but, as you can see, it’s always worth revisiting your use of language while you refine the experience for readers throughout your second draft and beyond. Being aware of the overall context as you edit is a power to be envied by any word wizard. The right content, delivered with the right words to the right audience. Now there’s a recipe for NaNo success.

Here at AutoCrit, we’re looking forward to helping you achieve just that throughout the remainder of 2020 and beyond. Visit our NaNoWriMo 2020 offer page to enjoy 60% off an annual AutoCrit subscription. 

NaNoWriMo winners also enjoy free entry into the January editing of our Book Editing Breakthrough Challenge, where we’ll guide you day by day through the how and why of the most impactful edits you can make in your manuscript. 

Happy writing!

Completing a draft in just 30 days is satisfying and thrilling, but for most participants, it’s just the beginning. Even “plotters” who write to an outline during NaNoWriMo will end up with a pretty rough draft—that’s par for the course.

Now it’s time to take all those wonderfully creative impulses and gold nuggets buried within the raw material and shape it into something more complete and readable.

In a recent interview, we asked Ally E. Machate, a bestselling book collaborator, award-winning editor, and expert publishing consultant, her opinion of why editing and revision are so important:

“The editing and revision period is an essential step for any novelist, especially those who are considering publication.

But even if you’re not planning to publish, ask yourself, what was your goal in entering NaNoWriMo? Was it just to churn out those 50,000 words, or to try and write a novel?

The creative process rarely works such that a perfectly told story emerges whole-cloth from one’s brain. Creation is messy; it’s the editing that begins to shape it into something beautiful, and the revisions you subsequently make that will turn it into something that can be shared with others and enjoyed.”

You’ve accomplished something amazing by getting that rough draft done. Now give yourself the gift of taking the next step. The good news is that you don’t need to to go about the editing process alone.

AutoCrit is your secret weapon for self-editing.

AutoCrit is entirely focused on this mission: to help fiction writers transform their draft into a story that changes people’s lives!

We’ve studied millions of fiction books across many different genres, connected with top editors and agents, and worked with authors just like you to understand what makes a successful book.

Then we rolled this knowledge into a simple online tool that provides step-by-step recommendations for improving your manuscript in over 20 areas—categories like poor dialogue, use of adverbs, and relying on cliches—and guides you through the editing and revision process.

Whether you write Romance, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Young Adult, or Short Stories, AutoCrit helps you infuse your manuscript with style and create vibrant prose that connects with your readers.

Click Here for the NaNoWriMo Special AutoCrit Offer. Expires Dec. 5, 2018.

Your self-editing efforts will be rewarded.

When asked if she appreciates when a writer has put in the effort to self-edit before passing their work to an editor, Ally Machate stated:

“To get the most out of an author / editor partnership, it’s best if authors first work to advance their drafts as much as they possibly can.

Tools like AutoCrit can help a lot to smooth out the writing and bring clarity to the page, which in turn enables an editor to better see through to the architecture beneath.

You don’t want your editor’s time or attention spent trying to figure out what a scene or moment is struggling to convey. You want your editor to be able to dig deeper into the more serious problems and/or opportunities for emotional impact.”

Commit today to go beyond the writing.

Just as you committed to writing during NaNoWriMo, today we're asking you to commit to editing and revising. Your story is worth it!

Congratulations with all your efforts during NaNoWriMo this year. We look forward to helping you feel confident in your writing and getting your story into the hands of readers.

Until December 5th, 2018, NaNoWriMos can save 50% and become an AutoCrit member for only $45 for 3 months.

For this article, we’re mostly talking about line editing––tweaking the linguistic nuts and bolts on the basis of words, sentences, and paragraphs. You have the core of your story down, so it’s a good idea to refine its current presentation before focusing on developmental concerns.

That’s because it’s easy to get caught up with stylistic edits when you’re trying to do a developmental run. Think, for example, if you jump straight in with an attempt to polish a sub-plot... but you’re constantly interrupted in your focus by clunky sentences and repetitive language that you feel the urge to fix right away. Bouncing back and forth like that is a quick method for madness––so it’s best to switch between 100% line and 100% developmental.

Tackling the line edit first helps you to get the language in order, making your story an easier read, and the ideas and arcs you may need to alter during your developmental runs will be much more accessible and apparent to you.

All of that aside, taking a systematic approach to your line edit is a superb way to start. Make a list of the elements you’re going to be looking for during your read, and give yourself one of these as a specific goal for each read-through. So, first, you target adverbs. Next, you target dialogue. After that, you target pacing. Be strict with yourself––even if you notice something on the way through, if it isn’t what you’re looking for during that pass, leave it for later. This will help train you to be efficient and purposeful with your editing, and also helps reduce overwhelm and increase the sense of reward with each pass––because you had a specific job to do, and you’ve done it.

2. Target Adverbs

To quote Stephen King, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs”––but we’re all guilty of throwing them around with abandon during drafting.

One of your early editing passes should be devoted entirely to these little miscreants. Keep an eye out for your use of words ending in –ly, and see if you’re using them to modify something when just one word would do the same job. “Charlotte ran quickly across the courtyard” would be much more kinetic and effective if it were re-worked to “Charlotte bolted across the courtyard,” for example. Adverbs are simple to spot during a quick read-through and can constitute a major quick win for your first line edit.

3. Snip Your Dialogue Tags

Checking your dialogue tags is a task you can complete relatively rapidly. The vast majority of times, the only tags you need to use are ‘said’ and ‘asked.’ You can, naturally, use others such as ‘replied’ on occasion, but you should avoid trying to inject too many behavior signifiers into your dialogue tags––they do nothing but get in the way.

Also be sure to watch out for adverbs in dialogue tags. These are the most common kind of behavior signifiers when paired with dialogue, but they’re lazy storytelling. Don’t just tell the reader that a character said something angrily––show that anger through the words they say, and their actions as they say them. See the difference between these two examples for illustration:

“’That’s enough! If you can’t be civil, then get out!’ Carter yelled, angrily.”

“’That’s enough!’ Carter said, as he slammed his fist on the table. ‘If you can’t be civil, then get out!’”

4. Get Rid of the Filler

Filler words, as the name suggests, are the kind that packs out your prose without adding anything to its effect. They’re like cardboard standees at a party––just sort of there, but serving little purpose.

The reason filler words are such a quick win is that the most common ones are almost universal. If you’re performing your first edit on a computer, go ahead and use your word processor’s search function to look for the following:

Just That Then Really Very

Chances are the majority of times they appear, they can be deleted without causing any comprehension problems in your sentence. So, if it reads just fine when they’re gone, leave them out. They’re filler. And they’re most certainly there. Have a search and enjoy a quick win!

5. Your First Chapter

We’re getting developmental with this one because sometimes you just can’t avoid the temptation to get your first chapter in close-to-final shape before you tackle anything else (an urge that gets stronger and stronger with every subsequent pass you make on your manuscript).

So when you’ve completed the simpler line edits we mentioned earlier, you can do a quick developmental run on your first chapter. For this, use the Chapter 1 Checklist from our NaNoWriMo Survival Pack. If you don’t have it yet, grab it now here.

In a nutshell, you should ensure that your first chapter starts in medias res––in the middle of things. Avoid packing back-story and slow, uninteresting information in here. The back-story and revelations should come later, fed throughout the main bulk of the story.

Also ensure your first chapter is fast-paced and starts your story with a bang––give us a reason to root for your main character as the inciting event kicks off, and leave the reader in suspense, with a clear question in mind: how is this problem going to be resolved?

If you have far too much going on in your first chapter––too much history, too much action without relevant plot information, or too much world-building––you’ll need to put the effort in to pare it down, narrow the focus, and take those excised elements for seeding later in the novel.

So there you have it: five quick ways to enjoy editing wins this December. Don’t get too complacent, though––there’s still plenty of work ahead!

If this is your first time writing a novel––or even if you’re a few novels deep into your writing career––editing can feel like an overwhelming task, especially when you lack structured guidance.

To help with that, head over here to download our free resource, The Secret Formula to Publishing a Best-Selling Novel. In there, you’ll get a short introduction to AutoCrit plus your very own complete, 80-page guide to self-editing.

This extensive resource breaks down every target you should aim for while editing––from dialogue, adverbs, clichés, and redundancies, to filler, passive voice, showing vs. telling, and so much more. Nothing’s left out.