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Fiction Corner

Alison Hawke

Quality Control

I studied Total Quality Management (TQM) at university. The idea was that you tested your quality at all stages of the manufacturing process. Defects were weeded out early, resulting in a higher yield of flawless widgets. I like the idea a lot and I think it applies to writing too.

I like rewriting. I don't like people to see my work unless I've been over it thoroughly with a red pen to catch the defects. This article will probably go through three drafts before it gets to you. The reason I'm saying this is because I've been reading a lot of less-than-perfect fiction online, and with a few tweaks, a little quality control, it could have been pretty good fiction.

Spelling

Spell-checking software is a gift from God. Unfortunately, it's not infallible. I have a long list of words I've added to my dictionary. Many words I use regularly just weren't there. The suggestions it offers are usually useful, except when you're writing about an alien species called Magog and the program insists on renaming them Maggot or Mango. There is no substitute for printing the story out and going over it by hand. It is harder for our eyes to read off the screen, I've found glaring errors on paper that I missed several times reading through on the monitor.

"Stop!!!!" she exclaimed!

I believe multiple exclamation marks are unnecessary, and that a tidy desk is the sign of a diseased mind. If you have to use multiple exclamation marks, perhaps the dialogue needs changing to reinforce the need for them. If you used an exclamation mark, you don't have to hit your reader over the head with another one, or point out that you used one by saying "he exclaimed." Every word, every punctuation mark, every paragraph should contribute to the story. If you have something there just to take up space and increase the word count, take it out.

His purple and yellow striped shoelaces trailed behind him...

You need to give some description of your characters, and that description should tell you something about the person. Don't describe everything they're wearing, or every facial feature, just give enough for the reader to get a glimpse of the character. If your character is a neat freak, you could mention that every paper on her desk is perfectly aligned at right angles to the edge of the desk, pens are segregated by colour and size, and that the waste bin is always empty. If your character is a computer geek, you could mention the stack of Mountain Dew cans arranged in a pyramid above the desk, the headphones permanently connected to the computer, and the piles of paper with scrawled pieces of code all over them. What would it say about a character if he had a pair of inline skates leaning against his desk? Does she have a picture on the wall painted by her four-year-old son? People customise their environment and you can make use of this.

Lots of repetition, repeated several times.

It is perfectly fine to use "said" a lot. We read it so much it is almost invisible to us. This is the only word I can think of that you can safely repeat in a story. Stephen King, Isaac Asimov and Sue Grafton use the word "said" a lot.

However, reading the same thing over several times is boring. If you always mention a character's shoes every time we see him, we'll get bored very quickly. If someone always says the same thing, we won't want to see her at all. I try not to use the same word twice in a paragraph, for example, "appeared" can be replaced with "arrived," or "emerged." There are an awful lot of words in the English language, thesauruses are very useful books.

So before you send something out of the door, do a little quality control.