Seven Points to Consider When Presenting Your Work
I want to discuss the presentation of your
work. If you are into the swing of
writing it’s quite possible that you might seek publication one day. So it’s best to get into good habits now. You need to format your work so that it’s
reader friendly, in other words, so it makes the reader want to read on.
Here are some tips I’ve learned along the way as a
writer:
1. Don’t use
too many long words.
Sometimes we feel the need to impress others, but if
the language used is too elaborate it only seeks to confuse people and slow
down the reading process. After all, do
you really want readers to have to pull a dictionary down off the shelf to
translate?
2. Less is
more.
It’s easy to get carried away and repeat
ourselves. When we post to the group
it’s more likely to be a first draft, but if seeking publication, it’s often a
good idea to pare your work down beforehand.
Magazines, publishing houses and websites often have a specific word count
and no matter how good your work is, they will reject it if it goes well over
that count.
3. Show lots
of white space!
This makes it easier on the eye for the reader. Construct paragraphs. Do you know when you need to use a new
paragraph? I always begin one when there
is something new to say, or when a different person speaks. I don’t indent paragraphs for online
purposes, I just double line space. I do
the same thing when I submit to publishers.
These are known as ‘block paragraphs’.
Just the way I’ve written this!
4. Avoid the
use of ALL CAPITALS!
Most of us have used all caps at some time or
another, but it can give the reader the wrong impression, especially online as
it’s associated with shouting. As well
as that, if you decide you want to submit your work for publication it becomes
hard work as you have to rewrite the entire piece of work as editors will not
accept work written in capital letters.
5. Use speech
marks.
When writing a short story, personal essay or novel,
if you need to indicate someone is speaking then you need to employ speech
marks, either “ ” or ‘ ’. Various publishing houses use either. I prefer “ ” for speech marks and ‘’ to
emphasise a point. For example:
“Hello Jenny,” he said. “It’s been a long time...”
Jenny stood, motionless. Ten years ago Matt Webster had seemed ‘the
next best thing to sliced bread’, now looking at him in his blue scrubs he
looked like all the other staff in the Accident and Emergency department,
overworked, tired and a little rough around the edges...
6. Begin near the end...
This might sound like strange advice but often
people get so caught up in setting the scene that they forget to get straight
into the action. Immediate actions helps
to hook the reader and makes them want to read on.
For example:
Sam rose out of bed and padded softly down the
stairs. He switched on the kettle to
make himself a cup of tea. It was going to be an exciting day, his stomach churned
at the thought of it. He popped a tea
bag into the awaiting cup all the while mulling things over, should he leave it
for another day? Were all his plans in
action? Could something go wrong?
The sound of the phone ringing diverted his
attention. He lifted the receiver. “Hi Mum...”
His mother liked to phone him first thing in the
morning. She wanted to know what he was
having for breakfast...
Etc, etc, etc,
Sometimes writers luxuriate by composing several
pages of inconsequential prose before getting right into the action.
How about instead:
“Stop what you’re doing...” Sam hissed at the
counter clerk. “I have a gun in this
rolled up newspaper pointing straight at you... and I’ll blow your fucking head
off if you don’t do as you’re told...I want all those notes beside you bundled
up and placed in this bag.” He slid a
black cloth bag across the counter.
The clerk’s eyes widened with terror, his face a
deathly shade of grey. Sam watched the
man become putty in his hands. This was
going to be like taking sweets from a baby and he took great satisfaction in
that.
See how more exciting it is to get immediately into
the action? Sam had planned to hold up the post office. Do we need to bother telling readers about
him getting out of bed, making a cup of tea, taking a phone call from his
mother, etc? Why bore readers with mundane facts and actions before getting
right into the nitty gritty of the story?
7. Avoid text
speak.
With modern technology we are used to abbreviations,
especially when it comes to our mobile phones, but that kind of thing doesn’t
translate well for the reader. ‘Wat U up
to en?’ Isn’t going to work in a short story, essay or novel, not unless one of
the characters is reading a text message.
It’s hard work for a reader to decipher text speak and publishers will
definitely not publish work like that.
Presentation is important it can mean the difference
between publication and rejection and more importantly, whether we hook the
reader in!
