Today I'm pleased to be hosting a guest post from one of my writing buddies, author Skylar Kade, as part of her
So, without further ado,I give you her guest post about writing:
Writing Punchy Sentences
Writing 101: Write good sentences. But what the hell does that even mean? Most beginning writers will load their sentences with vivid adjectives and adverbs and wildly imaginative verbs.
But this may not actually accomplish what you want—a sentence that punches right at the reader’s psyche. In romance, this is especially important because when you’re dealing with stories about sex and love, you want to bypass the logical forebrain and have the characters’ trials hit the reader as if they were their own.
In this scenario, our heroine is getting ready to have sex with the hero for the first time. We’re going to take the most basic sentence that summarizes her feelings, and looks at ways to take it from blah to punched up. Remember—not every sentence has to hit this level of precision, but this is a good way to selectively hit the reader in the face (or the heart, if you’re into that kind of romance) on occasion.
WHAT WE WANT TO EXPRESS: She felt excited.
This isn’t a bad sentence, per se. It’s just bland. You’re not giving the reader any access points, or ways to approximate what she’s feeling. Is she excited and nervous? How does she experience excitement--what does it feel like to her? “Felt” is what I like to call a nothing verb. You’re telling the reader she’s experiencing something, but in an empty way. Don’t get me wrong—feel is a great verb, and I use it in my writing. But when you’re going for a scene of high emotion or high intensity, every word counts.
IMPROVED SENTENCE: She thrilled at the excitement flooding rapidly through her body.
To me, this is a little heavy-handed, and it has three main issues. First, we have the same problem with “thrilled” as we did with “feel”—it’s kind of a nothing verb. We want to evoke a visceral, physical reaction in the reader.
Second, “rapidly” is an adverb that doesn’t do anything to the sentence that a stronger adjective than “flooding” couldn’t solve.Actually, the whole phrase “flooding rapidly through” could be replaced by a single, strong verb. You could use “flooded”—good enough by itself—or “swamped” or “deluged.” Technically, I don’t think deluged is a verb, but this is one area of creative license I’m passionate about—appropriating words in one part of speech and using it in another. For example: using the noun “mouse” as a verb, as in “The shy girl moused into the back of the classroom.” Vivid, right?
The other problem is that pesky “she”. If we’re trying to punch the reader, we need to be in deep point of view, which, as much as possible, closes the distance between the reader and the POV character. Instead of being told what she’s experiencing, we feel (see, nothing verbs are ok sometimes!) everything along with her. Here’s where we get super-tricky and all sexy grammatical. Right now, “She” is the subject of the sentence, “thrilled” is the verb, and “excitement” is the object. We’re going to invert this a little bit and say that “Excitement” is the main actor in this sentence.
EVEN BETTER SENTENCE: Excitement flooded her body.
So we’ve deepened POV by making “Excitement” the subject of the sentence. We’ve tightened the verb and have something action-y: “Flooded.” This is a pretty damn good sentence, especially since we started with “She felt excited.” This is leagues better. But how can we make it even more visceral? We have to show the reader how excitement feels to the heroine.
AMAZEBALLS SENTENCE: Excitement gripped her by the throat.
Punch to the face! We feel this along with our heroine. We know what kind of excitement she’s experiencing—part terrifying, mostly thrilling. Ka-pow!
Let me reiterate—not every sentence needs to be amazeballs. Not only does it not need to be this way, it shouldn’t. The moresentence you have that punch the reader, the more exhausted they’ll be by reading, and the less impact each punchy sentence will actually have. Pick and choose. String a few together for the turning points, or pepper them in your high emotion scenes. Use this power judiciously!
Pro tip: If you try to write like this your first draft, your head might explode. When you’re drafting (especially fast drafting) write those crappy-to-mediocre sentences. This is why we edit, my friends: to create a damn good story and to keep our heads from spewing pieces of brain matter onto our writing buddies. Edit your way to punchy sentences.
BLURB
Can
they find love without losing themselves…
Tovia
Douglas has devoted her adult years to sheltering her mentally ill
mother and ensuring her sister's independence. When Tovia turns 27,
those lost years come into sharp, painful focus and she decides it's
time to start enjoying life, starting with a little mental vacation
through submission at her local kink club.
Keilor
Branson grew up believing in love at first sight. He just figured his
other half would feel it too. Instead, feisty new submissive Tovia
runs from their emotional connection. Determined, Keilor must chip
away at her walls and prove that love is worth the risk.
When
family troubles lead to Tovia's change of heart, their roles are
reversed. Now she must prove to her man, her Master, that while love
isn't always perfect, they are perfect for each other.
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EXCERPT
His
face hit her like a fist to the stomach. Even after seeing him in her
dreams every night for a month, she was still awed by him. Dark brows
framed laughing hazel eyes, now serious, which led to a nose that
would have looked oversized on anyone else, with its reset-bone bump.
It just gave him character. More laugh lines around his mouth, and
the beginnings of a goatee. That was new. It was the only hair on his
head.
She’d
never been attracted to bald men, but Keilor was so sexy that even
his bare skull turned her on. She knew it was by choice. She’d
worked a little Google-Fu after their first scene together and found
recent pictures of him with a full head of thick, brown hair.
Warning
bells went off, but they were drowned out by his voice.
“I’m
sure Master
Mike will be tickled to learn he has such a steadfast champion.”
Waves
of subtle lemony air drifted over her, as they always did in his
presence. Or they did during their one scene together. She hadn’t
been able to serve a Lemontini since without her panties getting wet.
Tovia
sighed at his teasing even as the little hint of jealousy in his
voice made her stomach jump. She shouldn’t react, but her body
betrayed her so easily. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Laughter
rumbled her bones at every point of contact with his body. “I’m
an elite member. I’m here all the time.”
“Not
since we—” She bit off the rest of her sentence before she could
dig herself in further and tried again to wriggle from his lap.
“Silly
girl.” His words gentled, soothed. One rough hand slid up and down
her arm. Damnit, she should not like that. “I was in Greece. The
owner of the Hellena sent me over there to sample food and wine
vendors. I assumed you knew.”
Now
he’d think she was pining after him. Just because she hadn’t been
able to stop thinking about him didn’t mean she missed him. Or
wanted a repeat that lasted all night.
No,
because that would be ridiculous. Douglas women didn’t need
men. It was practically the family motto.
To
keep things light, she teased him back, ignoring the way her skin
heated beneath his touch. “Oooh, poor thing. That must have been
such a hardship.” A smile even teased at the corner of her lips
despite her efforts to remain unaffected by his presence. When was
the last time she smiled at a man who wasn’t tipping her for
drinks?
Keilor
stared down at her. “Actually, it was.”
Oh
boy.
She wasn’t touching the wealth of subtleties in those words. Not
going down that path.
Keilor
lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. Butterflies hatched
in her chest, then died when he said, “You look tired.”
She
scowled. “Well if that isn’t what every woman wants to hear from
an attractive—” Her jaw clunked shut around the foot in her
mouth.
He
nipped her forefinger, zinging arousal to all her naughty bits, then
stole her breath when he kissed her nose, her cheek. “Do you get a
freckle every time you sass a Dom?”
An
indelicate snort escaped her. “Sure. The freckles are a
little-known Dominant Warning System saying ‘steer clear of the
angry redhead!’” Yes,
she thought, hold
dear to your sarcasm.
It was her current chastity belt of choice, and that was swiftly
crumbling at the edges.
“Good.
Less competition.” His lips drifted to her neck, where he pressed
kisses to random patches of skin still exposed around the edges of
the blanket.
Oh
shit. She clutched the soft brown cover around her, remembering what
she wore beneath—absolutely nothing aside from her short shorts.
Like flipping a switch, her nipples hardened and her pussy clenched.
He could so easily expose her. Not that she hadn’t been naked in
the club every weekend, but it was different now, with Keilor
watching her.
Dangerous.
“What…what
are you doing?” His exploratory kisses had turned into sizzling
nips to her collarbone.
“Counting
your freckles.” He tugged at the blanket, playing momentary tug of
war with her until he stopped fighting and simply went around the
mountain. His hand slithered beneath her shield to scald her stomach,
then higher. When the back of his hand brushed across her nipple, she
moaned. “I need a baseline count. Scientific study and all of
that.”
