Dear Gemini…

Two thumbs down don’t warrant the round file. But since those thumbs take issue with the same thing—voice—let’s take that up. One way to make a “good” narrative voice “great” is to spiffy up your word and phrase choices. Don’t use bland go-to words. Characters don’t sit, they kick back or slump. They don’t get mad, they freak out or huff about. They’re not small, they’re scrawny. But even more than replacing bland verbs with active ones, or innocuous adjectives with spunky ones, look for phrases that force you to re-examine and recast the entire sentence, then the paragraph, then the scene, etc. For example, changing “He was so dumb” to “He was a congenital idiot” opens up a whole new personality for the narrative voice. Look to the last entries in your bound thesaurus (not those free on-line jobbies that are so heinously sparse), at the nonformal usage (“nf”) listings and let them inspire you. Start with a single scene, experimenting with phrases you wouldn’t have considered in the past. A new voice should emerge and take over the scene, and then the next scene, and then the next…. Give that a try and see how it flies.

Happy writing!

The Editor