Writing Cleanly: Realistic injuries

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you’ve stopped by, for the next in our series on writing clean fiction. It’s a subject that I think we really ought to talk about more often, because there’s a stigma against clean fiction. It’s a stigma that says clean fiction just can’t be as good as its unclean counterpart. And you know what? Most of the time… well, they’re right. Clean fiction just doesn’t get the hard-hitting nitty-gritty that a lot of readers are looking for out of their fiction. Which is why we need to spend a little more time honing our craft and perfecting the way we write, so our work stands up to the cultural norm.

This week, we’re talking about something that I touched on just a little bit in week one, but one that I thought we should come back around to, because of how important it really is in the long run.

Writing Cleanly: Realistic injuries

There’s a distinct lack of realistic injuries in television and film as well, and nobody seems to mind, but in the written word… believe me, they mind. They mind a great deal. So it’s extremely important that we take the time to write those injuries properly, and that we do our research so we know what we’re talking about.

Again, I’m going to remind you that there’s no way to please everyone. Clean fiction readers tend to be a little more intense of an audience, in that they can be far more difficult to please. They don’t know what they want, but they know what they don’t want and they’re not afraid to bash you online for doing the thing they don’t like. I know, it’s annoying. But you made the choice to write clean fiction for a reason, and there are ways to ensure that fiction is still amazing. I promise. It just won’t be able to please everyone who reads the genre. In fact, with a lot of the things I’m telling you, you might do better in some ways to not market as clean fiction. Other readers will love your books as well, and not even notice they’re clean.

When it comes to injuries in clean fiction, it is vitally important that you say what you mean. It’s a common trope of writing in general, that someone must be injured in the story, at some point along the way. So you’ll need to know who’s getting injured, how they would correctly respond to the pain of that injury, and what effects that injury will have upon them for the rest of the story.

This isn’t easy, and for some reason, many clean writers just don’t bother to do the research. There’s this stigma that says clean readers don’t want to see any blood at all, even if someone gets stabbed in the stomach. Well, that’s just not true. We don’t want to see the gore of it. We don’t want to see sinew unless it’s entirely necessary (if a character falls and breaks his leg, we’re more apt to be okay with seeing that sinew—if he’s sliced open by another character, it’s harder for us to stomach). But most of all, we really do want it to be realistic. We don’t want someone to break their ankle in one chapter and three chapters later have that same someone walking around like it’s nothing.

Now, the easiest way to make sure you’re doing this correctly is honestly to find a friend. I’m willing to bet, in this day and age, that you know a nurse (or someone else in the medical profession). And if you don’t, well, it’s not that difficult to go into a hospital and meet one. ;-) Point is, a medical professional would be able to tell you exactly what effects that injury would have on a person, tell you how long they’d expect for recovery, and even tell you whether or not that person would be likely to pass out when the injury is inflicted.

Of course, if you don’t have a friend in the medical field and don’t want to make a friend for the sake of your writing, there’s always the internet—and it really is a treasure trove of information. Point is, you need to do some research, either way.

And like I said before, the rule of thumb for showing detail in injury is whether or not it was an accident, and the level of gruesome in the injury. Clean readers very rarely ever want to see spilled intestines, but we’ll handle smashed skulls, broken bones, shredding muscle, and very much more—as long as it happened by accident, or happenstance. Intentional injuries are much harder for us to stomach, and you’ll have to use your best judgement to decide how far you’re willing to go.

Have a specific injury you’d like an opinion on? Send me a message and let me know!

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Writing Cleanly: All aflutter

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. This week is Valentine’s day, the whole reason why I decided not to write a series on love, and I hope that you all have a marvelous one.

Because it’s Valentine’s and I didn’t want to be talking about love in two separate blogs, we’re talking about writing clean fiction—and some of the things that writers struggle with, when writing clean fiction. (by the by, if you haven’t read last week’s post, you should!) As an editor of clean fiction, I can tell you that there are a lot of indie authors who need help in this arena—which is what I’m here for, this month!

We’re tackling some of the subjects that are annoying difficult to brooch in clean fiction, because clean fiction readers can be even harsher than the other ones (and sometimes we question why we set ourselves up for this in the first place).

This week?

Writing Cleanly: All aflutter

Yeah, yeah, I know. I said I wasn’t going to be talking about love—but you know what, love is a tricky subject, when it comes to clean writing. It can be a make or break, for a lot of readers, and it needs to be approached very delicately, from start to finish.

If you hate writing love stories… I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’ll need this information at some point anyway, so you may as well stick around, or at least bookmark this post for later.

Now, before we get any further, I want to have one little aside. If you did want to read a series on love, this month, then click over to the RADblog. I’ll be posting about different kinds of love and how to write them in fiction, all through February and March. It’ll be great fun.

In here, however, we’re talking romantic, guy-meets-girl love.

The trouble with this kind of love, at least in clean fiction, is that it can lead to a lot of red flags, for a lot of readers. Especially when it comes to writing romance novels. Yes, there are clean romance novels. Yes, they actually are quite popular. But ask any romance author how they write their love scenes, and they’ll all give you very different answers.

See, just like with battle scenes, you won’t be able to please everyone when you’re writing. You just won’t. I’m sorry to say it, but you won’t. Some people want erotica and other people don’t—and the lines always blur at some point. Again, I’ll be showing you a couple ways you can potentially write your love stories, that’ll take you right down the middle in terms of what clean fiction readers are looking for, but that’s the best I have to offer. A majority, but not all.

The way I see it, there are two main ways to tell love stories in clean fiction. You can either have the love scenes all be behind closed doors, or you can have your characters be chaste (in whatever definition you choose) throughout the story.

With option one, you write a normal romance novel, only you have all the actual "romance" take place behind closed doors. That means your readers won’t see what’s happening, but they’ll know what’s happening, because you’ve implied it. There’s a lot of innuendo, in this sort of writing. A lot of, you-know-what’s-going-on-but-I’m-not-going-to-show-you, and that can be great way to write a love story. In many ways, you get the best of both worlds: you get to show your characters falling in love, and show what most people consider to be a normal relationship between two consenting adults, but without getting too steamy on screen.

Option two takes a little bit more doing, because you’ll have to put more thought and detail into your characters as a whole. You’ll have to be more intentional with the things you do describe, and the ways your characters think, to “justify” why there’s no “behind closed doors” time between them. Why? Because a lot of readers are expecting that steaminess, and you don’t want them to notice that it isn’t there.

Personally, when I’m using option two, I like the “fade to black” method. I cut my scenes before it can get too deep, before the characters get too far into their time together, so readers can decide for themselves whether or not anything happened—but I’ll make it mildly clear in later text, that nothing steamy actually happened between my characters.

Lastly, when it comes to deciding how much is too much steam… that’s really up to you. I can’t tell you how much steam to include, because it’s hard to say, without having read your story. Every story is different, every story needs something different, and I’m reluctant to give you a scale to measure against.

I will say something very similar to what I said last week, which is that I’ll generally measure my stories by the “would I allow my thirteen-year-old cousin to read this?” scale, and it seems to do well for me.

As for you? Well, you’ll have to find your own scale, because I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you consider clean.

If you’d like specific advice, however, shoot me a message! I’d love to help point you in the right direction!

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Writing Cleanly: Into battle

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, and I hope that you enjoyed last month’s series—it was a lot of fun for me to work on.

This month, because I wanted to be a little different, we’re not going to be talking about anything to do with Valentine’s day. I know, I know, I usually do a series on love in writing, or some such thing, but honestly… I’m doing that in the RADblog this month, and I didn’t want to do it here, too ;-)

So instead, let’s talk about clean writing. And by clean writing, I don’t mean writing without any errors. I mean, writing that adheres to the “clean” mantra/genre/category. Clean writing, as in, writing that’s suitable for submission to RAD Writing, you might say. ;-) (am I winking too much?)

It can be a great struggle, for a lot of writers, to write something amazing, something that’s still hard hitting and doesn’t compromise on story, all because we want to write clean fiction. I’ll be really honest with you guys. A lot of indie authors who write clean fiction, do so very poorly. I’m saying that because I’ve read a lot of indie authors who write clean fiction, and because I’m an editor, so I know good writing when I see it—and a lot of those books… they aren’t. I’m sorry for saying it, but they’re just not great.

I want to help, in that regard.

So I’ve designed this month’s series around four topics that I know many clean writers struggle with, and I hope to help you tackle writing these subjects, without compromise.

Writing Cleanly: Into Battle

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight, before we go any further: some readers won’t like your battle scenes, no matter how you write them. If you go too gory, some readers won’t like it. If you don’t go gory enough, other readers won’t like it. So I’m going to try to explain this, to the best of my ability, to aim you straight down the middle—where you’re more likely to please the greatest number of readers. That’s what we’re all after, really.

Now I’m going to put on my editor hat, and I’ll be telling it to you straight.

When you’re writing battle scenes in general, you want to give as much detail as possible, without going too overboard on where people/battalions/troupes are physically standing. It can get muddled and confused for readers, when you give too much information as far as standing locations. Make those locations briefly stated, very to-the-point, and move on.

When you’re writing battle scenes, make sure you have a clear image in your head, of what’s going down. If you’re a seat-of-your-pants writer, like me, try writing an abridged version of your scene, just so you know who’s where and what’s happening, and then go back in and fill out some detail. If it helps, get out a piece of paper and draw a diagram. Arrows are your friend! It doesn’t have to look good, and no one ever has to see it but you. Seriously. I won’t even ask to see it.

Once you have that in your head, and once you know what’s happening, go in and put some details. Tell me things like what you’re POV character is seeing, whether or not time is slowing (or speeding) for them. Tell me about the weather, and whether it’s affecting the way anyone fights. Tell me if someone close to your POV character looks tired, and what the POV character thinks of that.

Show me someone getting injured. Whether that’s a stab through the stomach (survivable, in many cases) or a bullet through the head (obviously not survivable), is up to you. I want to see your POV character react to that instant. I want them to see it, too feel it, and to have some sort of reaction. Why? Because that’s more moving for a reader than if the injury occurs to your POV character straight out of the gate.

Take your time here. Be thoughtful with the things you choose to describe, and make sure each description has a actual, required reason why it's there. More often than not, this will depend on your POV character and their state of mind before the battle began, or the place you need them to be when the battle is over.

Now that you’ve done all that, let’s really look into what it means to be clean.

Above, you’ll notice that I didn’t tell you not to be gory. I wanted detail. I wanted to see people injured. I wanted to see some carnage.

It’s in the edits that you’ll cut it down and decide whether things are clean or not. And if you’re not sure, then leave it for your editor! You can always discuss it with them, if you want a second opinion.

The thing to keep in mind is that in battle, there should be gore—but that most readers of clean fiction don’t actually want to see it. Some will, sure, but most want the allusion to pain and suffering in battle, rather than the blood and guts details. So in your editing, go through and cut anything visceral. If someone’s entrails are on the ground, maybe go zip them back inside.

Because you wrote the gruesome first, because you, the author, know what everything should look like, you’re the perfect person to cut it down to size. You know what details are important to your POV character, and therefore need to be left in. You know which injuries will be mentioned later on in the story, and therefore need to be left in. You know what’s going to be important later, and so you need to be the one to decide most of this.

My general rule of thumb, when it comes to writing battle scenes? If I wouldn’t want my thirteen-year-old cousin to read it because I think it’s too gruesome, I need to dial it back.

That right there is the best advice I can possibly give you.

[love]

{Rani Divine}