Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Word Count Wednesday

My word count today has consisted of looking for all the gesture crutches I've used in my manuscript.  My characters are all nodding, smiling idiots.  I can't believe how many times I've got them nodding and smiling!

So, I've been doing a bit of revising.  After I looked over Jordan McCollum's Fixes for Gesture Crutches and the Emotion Thesaurus, I dug in and started fixing.  Oy.  It's taken a lot longer than I thought, but so far, I've added about 500 words to the manuscript.

Do you use a lot of gesture crutches?  What's your strategy for getting rid of the grinny Gus in a manuscript who nods a lot?

How did you do this week?

3 comments:

Debra Erfert said...

I wrote 3,361 words this week. I didn't realize I was able to write that much. I'm happily surprised!

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself with those "gesture crutches'. The readers need direction, and seeing the characters smiling is a good thing! Now, if you had said, "she smiled" three times in a row, in the same paragraph, then it would be obvious, and then too much--I'd then agree.

KaseyQ said...

LOL! I think I need that thesaurus. I’m ashamed to admit that I may have quite a few nodding, smiling idiots in my MS as well. I’ve been reading a lot of Shannon Hale lately though, so I’m hoping some of her magical imagery skills might somehow seep into my brain by osmosis...

Unknown said...

During revisions, I try to visualize and/or act out how the character reacts and then describe it. Problem is, smiles and nods are often what I see them doing. A second redo can often fix that.