Alex White, the author of the The Gearheart, shares a new guest blog post.

Guest blog post

The Gearbox: Overstatement

by Alex White on Apr.22, 2009, under The Gearbox

Hey, everybody! Welcome back to The Gearbox- the weekly writing column where I tell you how to write what I want to read. I realize that a lot of what I talk about is already covered in books like Between the Lines and Stephen King’s On Writing, but I don’t care! I’m covering it anyway!

This week: Overstatement!

Overstatement is probably the biggest killer amongst young and aspiring writers. At least, when I edit other people’s stories, overstatement is the thing that I gripe about the most. Writers should realize that you only have a few words to capture a reader’s attention, and overstating everything is like shoving a stick in the spokes of the reader. As readers, we want to get into a nice flow, where the information trickles off the page, straight into our brains. We don’t want some overblown double-explanation of every idea in the story. Words must be chosen like the cuts on a bonsai tree- too few and you have chaos; too many, and you have stripped your ideas bare.

There are many kinds of overstatement:

1) Adverbial/Adjective Overstatement

Adverbs and adjectives are nothing short of fallbacks. They’re modifiers for when a noun, verb or preposition doesn’t exist to cover the thing you’re writing about- and they’re important. As writers, they’re one of the greatest weapons we have in our arsenals, but frankly, they can be overkill. They’re powerful, and too many writers employ their use when a well-chosen word would have served better. Consider the following sentence:

“The angry man walked quickly from the room.”

Every single time you pull out an adverb or adjective, you should ask yourself, “Is there a word that I can use that connotes the meaning that I am about to apply with this adjective or adverb?” This is where thesauruses come in handy. I believe that there are no synonyms in the English language- only subtle and hidden shades of meaning. Pull out a thesaurus and find the right word. A much better sentence would have read:

“The man stormed from the room.”

There. It reads a little better now, right? I would wager that all of the meaning of the first sentence was captured in the second sentence, and it added a nice visual. Adverbs can be useful, but most of the time they’re just crap. Adjectives are a little better, but you have to start from the right noun before you begin modifying it.

2) Character Description Overstatement

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine. It’s a special kind of overstatement, of which I am particularly guilty. Character description overstatement (or “CDO” to save me some typing) happens when you describe a character in specific terms of his or her appearance, even if those attributes are not plot relevant. CDO is typically worked in at the most awkward times, and it serves to destroy the pace of a book during the first few critical pages when the book is supposed to hook the reader. Here’s an example:

“Andy bent down to wash his face, and when he looked up, he found himself looking into his own hazel eyes in the bathroom mirror. He casually examined his wavy, neck-length, straw-blond hair and strong, Roman nose. Looking down, he could see the muscles on his torso. He didn’t think he was much to look at, but the ladies disagreed.”

That is terrible! This should only happen in a novelization of a Quantum Leap episode! So much of that doesn’t really need to be said, and if someone doesn’t like the way that character looks based upon your description, you might have lost a reader. Consider, instead, this substitute:

“Andy was graceful, with the form of a gymnast, and his smile made him irresistible to women.”

By speaking in abstractions, you allow the reader to unconsciously create the character that they would prefer to see in their version of the story. That heightens the reader’s involvement quite a bit.

It’s not too bad, though, if you use the character description as a chance to either lampoon or illuminate your character’s personality, for example: “His clothes were perfectly ironed,” or “her teeth, blackening from years of addiction to sweets.”

3) Dialogue Attribution Overstatement

The last type of overstatement that I want to talk about is dialog attribution overstatement. DAO happens when you place some sort of indicator in the dialog attribution about how a line is read, even though there is really only one way to read the line. For example- suppose that you have a tense scene in a psychological thriller wherein the killer has just been discovered and becomes hostile. Our heroine tosses dirt in his eyes and bolts into the woods. The next line of dialogue is:

“‘I’ll kill you for that, you little witch!’ he shouted, his voice full of rage.”

Don’t waste page by adding an adverb, or “his voice full of rage.” We know his voice is full of rage. He’s trying to kill someone, and they may have seriously injured him. He’s not going to be jovial.

Now Stephen King and I diverge on this next point. He says that you should only use “he said/she said” dialogue attribution, but I think it’s okay to get spicier with your verbs. What is most important is that you disambiguate without becoming tedious.

Surely, though, I’ve belabored the problems of overstatement enough. What do you all think?

For more from Alex White check out The Gearbox.

Voice talent Jeffrey Kafer, featured in a Raise a Racket interview in Episode 19 and who will appear in a next season BTR-PR show, offered some solid advice for authors planning to record a book with mulitiple characters played by themselves.

“No doubt in your book, you have characters that appear in the beginning and then disappear only to reappear later. So how do you remember the voice you did? Do you try and dig up the chapter where you recorded it to give it a listen? If you do, you should be applauded for making sure you get the same characterization. However, this is a painfully tedious way to do it.

Ok, smart guy, what’s a better way?

When you first record that character, simply copy the dialog into a new audio file. How much you copy is up to you to keep as a reference for later use. Then save the file as the character name “Bob Jones.wav” or whatever. Keep it in your project folder. As the book progresses, you’ll have filenames for every character that you can reference immediately to refresh your memory.

Voila! You’ve saved much time and headache and you’ll keep your characters consistent.”

Evo has one reminder as well. As you plan voices for the characters, remember that some voices are more tiring than others. He says

“Figure out your approach to the character before you start the book. Start with the characters that have the most dialoge and record a sample of them as Jeffery says above. Make sure none of them are much of a challenge for you, since you’ll probably be using that voice a lot.

Then work your way down to the other characters, again, saving each narration file as a refresher for later on. If you have really nifty voice trick you want to try, but it kills your vocal chords, save it for a character who doesn’t talk a lot.”

Hope you enjoyed this little piece of insight into the workings of a podcast novel. Let us know if you’d like more tips.

The Gearbox: From TV Guide with Love

I love writers and podcasters. I’m addicted to their aspirations. Being around folks with such lofty dreams energizes me beyond almost anything else- caffiene, D&D, and yes, even bacon. That’s why I really enjoy speaking to them about who they are, what they do, and most importantly, what they write.

You’d be amazed how many of them cannot tell me.

Let me start out by saying that writing plot synopses for brevity is difficult and people try. They really do. I have the utmost respect for writers, so please do not think I am poking fun, but I need to provide an example of what I usually hear. This is something I just made up, not related to anyone’s story in particular.

Well, there’s this guy who can manipulate matter, and it’s the future. And in the future, there are these other races, the elves, the aliens and the cat people. And anyway, this guy who can manipulate matter was made in a genetics lab by fusing all of the other races’ DNA together. So now he has the power of transmutation- to convert any item to another item of the same molecular weight. Because he has this power, the government wants him for experimentation, but the cat people think he is a religious incarnation of their god, Felina, so they want to protect him. And all along the way, he goes about collecting allies until he is ready to lead the elves, aliens and cat people in a rebellion against the human empires. Fun ensues.

Great. By this time, I have forgotten what we started talking about in the first place. This problem extends into podcast promos, as well. Folks will go well into the 2-3 minute mark just telling me their backstory or introducing all of their characters. That’s very informative and all, but I don’t think it’s what an audience wants. What I think an audience wants is an easily-digested nugget of cool. I hold fast to my belief that a podcast promo should be no longer than 30 seconds to 1 minute.

I have a formula for writing log lines, and it works like a charm. I don’t know if this is the formula that the pros use, but it’s certainly the way I tackle a difficult plot. I’d like to share it with you, and have you put it to the test on your own work. Try it at your next party when you describe your book, and just see if people’s eyes light up with recognition. My formula is simple, it’s easy, and it will sell your story to the uninitiated.

There are 3 sentences in a log line. That’s it. They are as follows: The Carry, The Crossover and The Complication. Fairly simple stuff. You’ll see them defined below.

1) The Carry

The Carry is what carries (go figure) us into the world of your story. This is where you describe to us the everyday world of your hero and the things he/she does with her time. That isn’t to say that you say, “John Hero woke up and peed before brushing his teeth and going to work.” That is, unless you’re being ironic. Then you might say that. I don’t know.

The “normal world” of your hero is still fraught with some kind of conflict. Try to capture that. Maybe he or she is a secret agent. Maybe your hero just wants to be liked by the pretty girl behind the counter at the local bakery. Maybe your hero suffers from leukemia and starts out with only months to live. Let’s take the example from the top and formulate our Carry.

“John Hero’s life changed forever the day he learned he could convert anything into marshmallows.”

Short, sweet, and to the point. It captures that John has a power, and that power is marshmallic transmutation. It’s a real thing, I swear.

2) The Crossover

The Crossover literally refers to the events that precipitate your crossing into the second act of the story. In the Star Wars (Joseph Campbell) formula, this would be the moment that Luke discovers the burned bodies of Beru and Owen. This is when the hero learns that he/she can’t go back to his/her mild-mannered life of secret-agenting or bakery-lusting. I need to come up with better verbs.

You want to capture the core conflict of the story in this line, and at the same time, reveal the nemesis for bonus points. Of course, you can disregard the nemesis reveal if you’re writing some kind of murder mystery. In that instance, you tell us who died, as that is your first act turning point. Here’s the John Hero Crossover:

“However, when mysterious agents show up to kidnap John, he uncovers a mysterious past of genetic manipulation and government treachery.”

A murder mystery line might read more like, “But when a body turns up at the International Butler Convention, the police find themselves too baffled to solve the mystery!”

3) The Complication

The complication is the way that your Crossover causes the story to unfold. It’s the extra oomph that a reader/listener/viewer might not have expected, and it’s the paramount selling point. There are a lot of stories out there, but this is the third element that makes yours unique.

In Star Wars, this would be Luke’s Jedi powers and religion. In Hamlet, this might be represented by the prince’s slow descent into insanity. Without the Complication, your story is just a basic tale of cause and effect. This is the randomizing element that makes it both unpredictable and interesting.

Let’s write a Complication for the story above.

“With the aid of the mysterious Nya-meow Cat Folk, Smith must now embark upon the greatest journey of his life- one that will take him from the sinister labs, to the churches of the Cat Pope, and to the stars beyond!”

You can also finish this with sentence with another: a call to action like, “Find out on The Gearheart!” (But only an idiot would have a title like that.)

–

You can find more from Alex at The Gearbox

About our Guest Contributor

Alex has more tips and tricks on writing at his blog www.thegearheart.com

Follow Alex on twitter at @thegearheart.

Alex will be interviewed on our regular Raise a Racket RSS feed next week.

REMINDER: J.C. on PR-BTR

J.C. Hutchins’s print release of 7th Son: Descent is here! Join us LIVE on PR-BTR to find out how it went and win some schwag. J.C Hutchins will give two signed copies of the new book, one chat questioner will win a bag of schwag and another a signed copy of 7th Son Descent. Set your reminder now for Tuesday, October 27th at 6pm PST/9pm EST.

Getting Good Audio
by J. Daniel Sawyer

Good audio can’t save bad writing. You’ve heard it before, and it reflexively sounds true – after all, great special effects can’t save a lame movie, and the same might well be true for audiobooks. The inverse, however, is a little less obvious to most people: Bad audio CAN destroy good writing.

This one doesn’t have a good film corrolary — after all, there are gobs of great movies made on shoestring budget, shot on video or 16mm, that are interesting enough that the low production values don’t make one bit of difference, aren’t there?

Actually, there aren’t. Unless you’re a bad movie fetishist (not that I’d know what that is), any movie that holds your attention is meeting a certain quality threshold with its production values. If you’re not seeing it on the screen, close your eyes and listen: chances are the movie has good, solid audio. Even if it’s not fancy, it’s got a few basic qualities:

1) The voices are clear, rather than muddy
2) The background noise levels in a given scene are consistent, rather than fluctuating up and down
3) The editing is clean – where there are breaths, they are full breaths rather than chopped in the middle.
4) The plosives don’t pop and the sibilants don’t hiss
5) The sound characteristics are consistent – you can’t tell where one take ends and the other begins, even with ADR.

How do you get these? Here are a few quick tips:

Clear voices

Voice is what you’re all about as a podcaster, so make sure that you’ve got a mic that plays fair with your voice. If you’ve got a bass heavy voice, don’t get a mic that attenuates the high end — you need those consonants in there to have a bright, clear sound.

To pull this off, the spectrum analyzer is your friend. Almost every audio editing program has one. Vocal range for most people is between 200 and 2000hz for the tone, and between 4000 and 20,000hz for your consonants. Record your voice doing different things and then look at it in the spectrum analyzer to see where your voice is the strongest and where it’s the weakest. Make sure that your consonant peaks don’t get lost when you process your audio — so don’t ever boost your bass without also making sure you can hear your consonants brightly and clearly.

Give me a clean sound

You must record in a dead room. In audiogeek speak, “dead” means “does not have much of an echo” where “live” means “has echoes like a gymnasium.” When you chose which room to record in, you want something that is, as Miracle Max would say, “mostly dead” (but not all dead – you need a teeny bit of resonance to help bring your vocal characteristics out.)

Most houses are pretty live – the flat, parallel, bare walls and the flat ceilings make for very unpleasant reverb – so you’re going to need to break things up. Throw pillows all over the place. Record with a bookshelf (filled with actual books) behind you. Cover any metal or glass or hardwood tables with reasonably thick blankets. Hang moving blankets or quilts in front of the walls and put throw-rugs down on hardwood floors. Put chairs at odd angles. The object of the game is to reduce the number of straight lines in the room and to introduce surfaces that absorb sound. If the flat surfaces can’t reflect sound back and forth to each other like a ping-pong ball then you’re on the right track.

Once that’s done, and you’ve recorded, you’re going to find out about another kind of floor: the noise floor.

Your noise floor is the noise that you can hear on the track when you’re not speaking – it’s the noise produced by the air moving in the room, fans in your computer, the electricity in the lines, the transistors in your equipment, and any radio frequency interference your mic cable might be picking up.

In professional environments, -70db or lower is an ideal noise floor and -60 or lower is acceptable (as most playback equipment produces -60db levels when it runs.) Anything over these levels is likely to be audible to your audience.

To measure the noise floor, use your spectrum analyzer — select a “silent” portion of audio and have the spectral analyzer graph it. On the x axis of the analyzer you’ll see the frequencies marked off, and the y axis will have the amplitude (volume). As long as your highest peak doesn’t break above -60, you should be fine.

Sometimes, it’s not possible to get a noise floor this low. If you’re recording multiple mics simultaneously, or you’re in a room that just can’t be made quiet. When this is the case, your audio requires special care when you edit. A number of programs out there contain noise removal tools called “gates” and “levelers.” Unless you know what you’re doing, do not use these – most of them will silence the quiet parts of your signal and/or boost your words (including the noise underneath them). This leads to sharply fluctuating levels in the noise floor, which triggers the fight-or-flight response in the human brain and will subtly unnerve your audience. On the other hand, the brain is perfectly capable of adjusting to even a fairly loud constant noise floor — put simply, it’s better to have a slightly dirty signal with a consistent sound than it is a signal that’s only clean in some places.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

SPECIAL NOTE

J.D. Sawyer will be the host of a special Podioracket.com Blog Talk Radio Extension where he leads a discussion with guests Rhonda R. Carpenter and Heather E. Roulo. If you have questions for the ladies about Podioracket.com, BTR, or either of their books then be there LIVE at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern on Thursday, September 17th. Set a reminder!

ABOUT OUR CONTRIBUTOR

J. D. Sawyer is author of The Antithesis Progression, Sculpting God,, Down From Ten, the host of The Polyschizmatic Reprobates Hour, and a regular contributor to LinuxJournal Magazine. Through his company ArtisticWhispers Productions, he manages various types of a/v productions and photography projects. Find out more, and get his podcasts, by clicking here.

We will continue to offer tips on writing, audio editing, and equipment through our regular feed and are pleased to announce a Tip Player. This new player has all the tips from experienced authors that have already aired in our first five episodes as well as additional never-before-heard tips provided by people we have interviewed. Check it out!

In the upcoming weeks we will be releasing interviews with Mur Lafferty, John Mierau, then Todd Newton and the much-anticipated interview with Christiana Ellis as Nina Kimberly fights our champion. We also have J.C. Hutchins, Jim Priest, Dan Sawyer, and others lined up.

Stick around.

P.G. Holyfield, an author who has logged many hours listening the chapters that new authors submit to the Podiobooks.com Mentoring Community, provides specific and individualized critiques of an author’s work as they prepare their book for submission to Podiobooks.com. This is invaluable. But he observes that most of the time new participants receive feedback along the same vein.  

Here is a snippet of his observations on the samples provided at Podiobooks.com:

“Most of the time the comments are similar in nature.

P.G. Holyfield Studio

• Issues with ambient noise (fans, mouse clicks, etc.)
• Stumbling over words
• Inconsistency with the narrator’s volume during sample
• Bad use of music (not the ‘quality’ of the music, but its volume (both as an intro or as bed music))
• Monotonous reading
• Reading too fast (90% of first samples suffer from this)
• Leaving no natural pauses between sentences after editing (usually because people are trying to lessen the ambient noise issue)

Most people ‘get it.’ They just need to hear it directed at their work
instead of reading it on a post.”

So, here in a post, I am suggesting that these seemingly simple observations be applied to any audio you record, for podcasts and novels. 

And if you think you are the exception, you likely aren’t. Because wouldn’t you rather you get your hard-won experience learning how to expand your listening audience than spend it regretting the rushed reading, ambient noise, or hot bed music that makes your listeners scream and drop their earphones?  Realizing at episode 10 just how you can improve is great– for everything after episode 10.  And going back to fix it is an experience worth missing.

If you haven’t heard P.G. Holyfield’s recorded tip on the difference a slower and more expressive reading can make, check out Episode 1 of Podioracket.com.  We also have plans for a tips-only player coming to the web site.  We’re getting some great tips for newcomers and experienced podcasters, writers, and Podiobooks.com authors. Hope you find it helpful!

Heather