STYLE BLUNDERS IN FICTION

by Jodie Renner, editor and author 

No, I’m not talking about the fashion police coming after you. I’m talking about those little errors and bad habits that creep into your manuscript, weaken your message, and add up to an overall feeling of amateurish writing.

The good news is that, unlike the more critical creative flow of story plot and character ideas, these little bad habits are easy to correct, resulting in a much more polished, compelling manuscript.

Here are some of those nasty little weeds to find and yank out of your literary garden, to be replaced with unique, striking blooms that will be the envy of the neighborhood:

1. Take out wishy-washy qualifiers like quite, sort of, almost, kind of, a bit, pretty, somewhat, rather, usually, basically, generally, probably, mostly, really, etc. Forget “He was quite brave,” or “She was pretty intelligent” or “It was almost scary,” or “Nala could kind of feel a sense of foreboding.” These qualifiers dilute your message, reduce the impact, and make the imagery weaker. Take them out. Even very is to be avoided – it’s like you’re saying the word after it needs reinforcing. “She was beautiful” packs more punch than “She was very beautiful.”

2. Avoid –ing verbs wherever possible. Use –ed verbs instead – they’re stronger and more immediate. “He was racing” is weaker than “He raced.” “They searched the house” is more immediate than “They were searching the house.” Rewrite -ing verbs whenever you can, and you’ll strengthen your writing and increase its power.

3. Show us, don’t tell us how your characters are feeling. Avoid statements like “She was depressed,” “He found that funny,” or “The little girl felt sad.” Show these emotions by their actions, words, and body language: “Eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, head down, she refused to answer as she pushed her food around the plate.”

4. Avoid colorless, overused verbs like walked, ran, went, saw, talked, ate, did, got, put, took, turned. Get out your thesaurus (or use the MS Word one. Hint: look up the present tense: walk, run, eat, say, etc.) to find more expressive, powerful verbs instead, like crept, loped, stumbled, stomped, glimpsed, noticed, observed, witnessed, spied, grunted, whimpered, devoured, consumed, gobbled, wolfed, munched, bolted, raged, or grabbed.

5. Keep adverbs to a minimum. Instead of propping up a boring, anemic verb with an adverb, look for strong, descriptive, powerful verbs. Instead of “He walked slowly” go for “He plodded” or “He trudged” or “He dawdled.” Instead of “She ate hungrily” say “She devoured the bag of chips,” or “She wolfed down the pizza.” Instead of “They talked quickly,” say “They babbled.”

6. Use adjectives sparingly and consciously. Instead of stringing a bunch of adjectives in front of an ordinary, overused noun, find a more precise, expressive noun to show rather than tell. Overuse of adjectives can also turn your writing into “purple prose” that is melodramatic and overly “flowery.”

7. Dialogue tags – Stick with the basic he said and she said (or asked) wherever possible, rather than “he emphasized” or “she reiterated” or “Mark conjectured" or "Lisa questioned,” etc. These kinds of words stand out, so they take the reader out of the story, whereas “said” is almost invisible. However, I like dialogue tags that describe how something is said, as in he shouted, she murmured, he grumbled, she whispered, he stuttered, she muttered, he yelled. You can often eliminate the dialogue tag altogether and just use an action beat instead: He picked up the phone. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops.”

8. Describe the stimulus, then the response: When writing an action scene, make sure your sentence structure mimics the order of the actions. The reader pictures the actions in the order that she reads them, so it’s confusing to read about the reaction before finding out what caused it. So describe the action first, then the reaction: Instead of “She screamed when the door slammed on her finger,” write: “The door slammed on her finger and she screamed.” (or “causing her to scream,” or whatever.)

9. Avoid the passive voice: For greater impact, when describing an action, start with the doer, then describe what he did, rather than the other way around. Use the more direct active voice wherever possible, for more impact. Instead of “The house was taped off by the police,” write “The police taped off the house.” Also, avoid empty phrases like “There is”, “There was,” “It’s,” “It was.” Jump right in with what you’re actually talking about.

10. Avoid negative constructions wherever possible – they can be confusing to the reader. Instead of “I didn’t disagree with him,” say “I agreed with him.”

11. Avoid frequent repetition of the same word or forms of the same word. If you’ve already used a certain noun or verb in a paragraph or section, go to your thesaurus to find a different way to express that idea when you mention it again. Also, avoid repetition of the same imagery. Whether you’re describing the setting, the weather, or the hero or heroine, vary your wording.

12. Avoid formal sentences and pretentious language. Rather than impressing your readers, ornate, fancy words can just end up alienating them. As Jessica Page Morrell says in Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us, “if a reader is constantly consulting a dictionary when reading your prose, you’re dragging him from the story.” As Morrell points out, “Simple words are close to our hearts and easily understood.... simpler words are unpretentious, yet contain power and grace….Pompous words are alienating, boring, and outdated.”

13. Avoid being overly wordy. Don’t clutter up your sentences with a lot of extra little words. For example, instead of writing in the vicinity of, just write near. Instead of as a consequence of, just write because. Instead of a large percentage of, just use many. Instead of in the direction of, use toward. Instead of “The sword that he was holding was knocked to the ground,” just say “His sword was knocked to the ground.” Extra words drain life from your work. The fewer words used to express an idea, the more punch it has.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

GENRES IN FICTION

FICTION CATEGORIES OR GENRES

What is genre fiction? Examples of genres in fiction are westerns, romance, thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, action-adventure, horror, and mysteries. If you’re writing a novel and want to get it published by a traditional publisher, it’s important to know which category it will most easily fall into. It’s more likely to be accepted by agents and publishers that way, as then they can package it to highlight the genre, and the bookstores will know which section to display it in. So if you’re writing a historical western romance with mysterious elements, you’ll probably have trouble getting it published. It’s important to make sure one genre predominates over the others, so publishers and booksellers will know how to market and shelve it.

According to Wikipedia, “All fiction is essentially generic, but genre fiction is overtly and intentionally so, signaling its generic identity in the clearest possible terms. A horror novel, for example, makes it clear through its cover design, its blurb, the comments printed on the cover from other novelists, and so on, that it is a horror novel; and it will be shelved in the appropriate place in bookstores.”

Genre fiction is often used interchangeably with the term “popular fiction,” and generally distinguished from “literary fiction.”

Most fiction writing, especially of novel length, does not conform exactly to the conventions of a genre. In fact, there’s actually no consensus as to the exact definitions or conventions of any of the genres of fiction. As Wikipedia states, “Writers, publishers, marketers, booksellers, libraries, academics, critics, and even readers all may have different ways of classifying fiction, and any of these classifications might be termed a genre. […] …the term genre remains amorphous, and the assigning of works to genres is to some extent arbitrary and subjective.”

Genre and the marketing of fiction

In the publishing industry, the term “category fiction” is often used as a synonym for genre fiction, with the categories serving as the familiar shelf headings within the fiction section of a bookstore, such as romance, western, sci-fi, or mystery.

“The uncategorized section [in bookstores] is known in the industry as ‘general fiction,’ but in fact many of the titles in this usually large section are often themselves genre novels that have been placed in the general section because booksellers believe they will appeal, due to their high quality or other special characteristics, to a wider audience than merely the readers of that genre.” (Wikipedia)

Genre fiction and literary fiction

According to Wikipedia, “the term ‘genre fiction’ is sometimes used as a pejorative antonym of literary fiction, which is presumed to have greater artistic merit and higher cultural value. In this view, by comparison with literary fiction, genre fiction is thought to be formulaic, commercial, sensational, melodramatic, and sentimental. By extension, the readers of genre fiction—the mass audience—are supposed to have less educated taste in literature than readers of literary fiction. Genre fiction is then, essentially, thought to be the literature that appeals to the mass market.

“But from another point of view, literary fiction itself is simply another category or genre. That is, it can be thought of as having conventions of its own, such as use of an elevated, poetic, or idiosyncratic prose style; or defying readers’ plot expectations; or making use of particular theoretical or philosophical ideas as well as having a niche audience, ‘generic’ packaging and ‘superstar’ authors. The publishing industry itself treats literary fiction as one category among others.

“In addition, it can be argued that all novels, no matter how ‘literary,’ also fall within the bounds of one or more genres. Thus Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a romance; Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is a psychological thriller; and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a coming-of-age story. These novels would usually be stocked in the general or possibly the classics section of a bookstore. Indeed, many works now regarded as literary classics were originally written as genre novels.”

LIST OF GENRES

As noted, there are many different ways of labeling and defining fiction genres. Following are some of the main genres as they are used in contemporary publishing. Note that these genres also exist within other age categories besides adults, such as young adult (YA) fiction, middle-school fiction and children’s fiction.

Romance – Romance is currently the largest and best-selling fiction genre in North America. It has produced a wide array of subgenres, the majority of which feature the mutual attraction and love of a man and a woman as the main plot, and have a happy ending. This genre, much like fantasy fiction, is broad enough in definition that it is easily and commonly seen combined with other genres, such as comedy, fantasy fiction, realistic fiction, or action-adventure. Publishers of romance novels have their own series or categories, such as contemporary romance, historical romance, inspirational romance, romantic suspense, western romance, erotic romance, paranormal romance, etc.

Action-adventure – Action-adventure fiction, traditionally (but not exclusively) aimed at male readers, features physical action and violence, often around a quest or military-style mission set in exotic or forbidding locales such as jungles, deserts, or mountains.

Crime – Crime fiction stories, centered on criminal enterprise, are told from the point of view of the perpetrators. They range in tone from lighthearted "caper" stories to darker plots involving organized crime or incarcerated convicts.

Mystery/Detective – Detective fiction has become synonymous with Mystery. These stories relate the solving of a crime, usually one or more murders, by a protagonist who may or may not be a professional investigator. This large, popular genre has many subgenres, reflecting differences in tone, character, and it always contains criminal and detective settings.

Mystery fiction involves stories in which characters try to discover a vital piece of information which is kept hidden until the climax. The standard novel stocked in the mystery section of bookstores is a whodunit. A few other types of mystery novels are Cozy Mysteries (where a group of people who are very unlikely to be mixed up in a crime become involved – these are usually not gory) or Hard-Boiled Mysteries (where the detective/private eye is very tough and unsentimental).

Suspense/Thrillers - use suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers, as well as romantic suspense. “Thrillers are mostly characterized by an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, though they often feature a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested. …A thriller is villain-driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.” (Wikipedia)

Horror –Horror fiction aims to evoke some combination of fear, fascination, and revulsion in its readers. This genre, like others, continues to develop, recently moving away from stories with a religious or supernatural basis to ones making use of medical or psychological ideologies.

Fantasy – Fantasy fiction features stories set in fanciful, invented worlds, an alternate and more fanciful version of our own world, or in a legendary, mythic past. Fantasy fiction stories generally involve magic, mystical elements, or supernatural creatures. The genre's relatively loose definition means it includes a large number of works in styles ranging from pseudo-mythological epics to more deliberately modern works, and includes works which also fall under other genres, such as horror fiction, comedy, action-adventure or romance. Some works generally classified as fantasy fiction also include elements of science fiction, and with many works revolving around psychics, ghosts, etc. being easily classified as either, some bookstores and critics tend to categorize the two genres together as “speculative fiction.”

Science fiction – Science fiction is defined more by setting details than by other story elements. Science fiction by definition includes extrapolated or theoretical future science and technology as a major component, and is often set on other planets, in outer space, or on a future version of Earth. Within these setting details, however, the conventions of almost any other genre may be used, including comedy, action-adventure and mystery. A sub-genre of science fiction is alternate history where, for some specific reason, the history of the novel deviates from the history of our world. Both alternate history and science fiction are often referred to alongside fantasy fiction, magical realism and some horror fiction under the umbrella term “speculative fiction.”

Paranormal/Supernatural – Books like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series have made this genre (sub-genre?) very popular in recent years. Paranormal romance has definitely become a huge seller, with its hunky vampires and werewolves. This sub-genre could fit under fantasy or romance.

According to Wikipedia, “Paranormal romance is a literary subgenre of the romance novel. A type of speculative fiction, paranormal romance focuses on romance and includes elements beyond the range of scientific explanation, blending together themes from the genres of traditional fantasy, science fiction, or horror. Paranormal romance may range from traditional category romances with a paranormal setting to stories where the main emphasis is on a science fiction or fantasy-based plot with a romantic subplot. Common hallmarks are romantic relationships between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, or fantastical beings (the Fae, Elves, etc.). …paranormal romances can also include characters with psychic abilities, like telekinesis or telepathy.

“Paranormal romance has its roots in Gothic fiction. Its most recent revival has been spurred by turn-of-the-century technology, e.g. the internet and electronic publishing. Paranormal romances are one of the fastest growing trends in the romance genre.” (Wikipedia)

Erotica – "A development in contemporary erotica has been that, contrary to some previous views that it was mainly a male interest, many women readers are aroused by it, whether it be traditional or tailor-made women's erotica. Romantic novels are sometimes marketed as erotica—-or vice versa—-as "mainstream" romance in recent decades has begun to exhibit blatant descriptions of sex. Erotic Romance is a relatively new genre of romance with an erotic theme and very explicit love scenes, but with a romance at the heart of the story. Erotic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction and utilizes erotica in a fantasy setting. These stories can essentially cover any of the other subgenres of fantasy, such as high fantasy, contemporary fantasy, or even historical fantasy." (Wikipedia)

"Online bookstores purvey a range of erotic writing. Whereas once access to online erotic fiction was largely restricted to membership or pay sites, in recent years a marked increase in the number of community based, not-for-profit or free access websites has led to an explosion in the level of popularity of this genre." (Wikipedia)

Western – Western fiction is defined primarily by being set in the American West in the second half of the 19th century, and secondarily by featuring heroes who are rugged, individualistic horsemen (cowboys). Other genres, such as romance, have subgenres that make use of the Western setting. You can, for example, have a romantic western or a western (American) romance.

Literary fiction – Literary fiction is a term in common usage since around 1970 to distinguish so-called “serious” fiction (that is, work with claims to literary merit) from other types of genre fiction. In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more on style, psychological depth, and character, whereas mainstream commercial fiction (the “page-turner”) focuses more on narrative and plot.

by Jodie Renner, http://www.jodierennerediting.com/

TYPICAL LENGTHS OF FICTIONAL WORKS

Fiction Classifications by Length  

by Jodie Renner, editor and author

You start writing what you think is going to be a short story. Then it starts growing. Soon it’s in that fuzzy area between a short story and a novel. You don’t really want to spend the time and effort to turn it into a novel. What is it called now, and is there a market for these in-between fiction works? Thanks to e-publishing, the answer is yes! Although e-publishers typically don’t want to tackle the longest novel forms, they’re often open to anything from flash fiction or a “short short” through a “novelette” to a novel size of manuscript.

The following list of typical lengths of fictional works is adapted from “How Long Should Your Story Be?” an article by Lee Masterson about approximate guidelines for story lengths, which appears in much greater detail on the website Fiction Factor, The Online Magazine for Fiction Writers, at www.fictionfactor.com.

Micro-Fiction – up to 100 words
- “This very abbreviated story is often difficult to write, and even harder to write well, but the markets for micro fiction are becoming increasingly popular in recent times.”

Flash Fiction or Short Short – 100–1,000 words
- The length of story often found in glossy magazines. “Very popular, quick and easy to write, and easier to sell!”

Short Story – 1,000–7,500 words.
- The “regular” short story, usually found in periodicals or anthology collections. Contests usually cap it at about 2,500 words. Check their submission guidelines.

Novelette – 7,500–20,000 words
- Can be a difficult length to sell to a print publisher. It’s too long for most publishers to insert comfortably into a magazine, yet too short for a novel. Better for e-publishing.

Novella – 20,000–50,000 words
- A popular length for the e-publishing market.

Novel – 50,000 –110,000 words
- However, most print publishers seem to prefer a minimum word count for a novel of around 70,000 – 90,000 words, except for YA (young adult) fiction, which is typically (but not always) shorter. Due to budget constraints, publishers are increasingly hesitant to take on fiction over 110,000 words.

Epic or Super Novel – Over 110,000 words
- This category is mostly for established authors who already have a contract with a traditional publisher.

Here’s another general guideline I happened on online for fiction classifications by length. Notice the slight variation from the list above in the typical word length of the different categories.

Super Novel: 120,000+ words    
Novel: 80,00-120,000 words
Young Adult Novel: 30,00-70,000 words
Novella: 15,000-30,000 words
Short Story: up to 15,000 words
Flash Fiction: up to 1,000 words
Micro Fiction: up to 300 words

(www.WritersLiterary.com)

As Lee Masterson cautions us, “Remember, these word- and page-counts are only estimated guides. Use your own common sense, and, where possible, check the guidelines of the publication you intend to submit your work to. Most publishers accepting shorter works will post their maximum preferred lengths, and novels are generally considered on the strength of the story itself, not on how many words you have squeezed into each chapter.”

Finally, here's a very useful info-graphic from Writer's Digest:

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

CREATING COMPELLING CHARACTERS

by Jodie Renner, editor and author

“The first thing that makes a reader read a book is the characters.” – John Gardner

“Living, vibrating human beings are still the secret and magic formula of

great and enduring fiction.” Lajos Egri

You can have a great premise and riveting plot, but if your characters are weak, boring, or undeveloped, your book will be quickly rejected by agents and acquisition editors. As Elizabeth Lyon points out, “Characterization is the bedrock of fiction and the reason most people read it. What endures in our hearts and minds over time is the heroes, heroines, and villains. Less often do we recall their plots. The fiction writer’s greatest challenge is character development.” (A Writer’s Guide to Fiction)

You should spend as much or more time on developing your characters as on creating an interesting plot. As Ingermanson and Economy so aptly put it, “If you want to write truly memorable fiction, your best bet is to start with a wonderful character, one who leaps off the page and into your reader’s mind. A great character feels completely real, with a past, a present, and a future….

Fiction writers spend enormous amounts of time developing and getting to know their characters, imagining complicated life histories and digging deep to find plausible motivations. This is not wasted time! If you don’t know your characters, then your readers won’t either.”
(Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy, Writing Fiction for Dummies)

Unpublished authors very often have written a good story, but neglected to develop their characters sufficiently. Elizabeth Lyon tells us: “I have seen a nearly universal phenomenon in the manuscripts I work on: Almost every novel that is finished in the eyes of the writer still needs work on characterization. …the following components of characterization are frequently missing or underdeveloped: Backstory wound, universal need, personal yearning, strength and weakness….
It’s common for plotting to eclipse character development. Most published authors have gone back in revision to ‘layer it in’.”
(Elizabeth Lyon, Manuscript Makeover)

Your protagonist needs to be likeable, charismatic, and complex enough to be interesting. He/she needs emotional depth and a few flaws and insecurities. And he/she needs to be able to draw on inner strengths and resources to take on adversity and overcome odds. If your character is annoying, boring, too perfect, or a wimp, you’re dead in the water. –And don’t make your villains 100% evil, either!

No annoying protagonists, please!

Your main character can and should have a few faults, but overall, she needs to be sympathetic and likeable – not whiney, ditzy, cold, or annoying. Your reader wants to be able to identify immediately with your lead character. If the reader doesn’t care about your protagonist and what happens to him/her within the first few pages, she will put down the book and go on to another one. As James Scott Bell says, in fiction, “readers will respond only if they are connected, bonded in a way to the lead character.”

In his Revision Checklist section, James Scott Bell has these questions to ask yourself about your protagonist:

“Is my Lead worth following for a whole novel? Why?  

How can I make my Lead ‘jump off the page’ more?

Will readers bond with my Lead because he…
… cares for someone other than himself?
… is funny, irreverent, or a rebel with a cause?
… is competent at something?
… is an underdog facing long odds without giving up?
… has a dream or desire readers can relate to?
… has undeserved misfortune, but doesn’t whine about it?
… is in jeopardy or danger?”

- James Scott Bell, Revision and Self-Editing

Make sure your main character fits at least several of the above situations.

A perfect character is insufferable.

Don’t make your main character too good to be true. Nobody likes a "goody-goody two-shoes." As Mittelmark and Newman so aptly put it, “Perfect people are boring. Perfect people are obnoxious because they’re better than us. Perfect people are, above all, too good to be true.
“Protagonists should only be as nice as everyday people are in real life. Making them nicer than the average reader will earn the reader’s loathing, or make her laugh in disbelief.
“An unprincipled gold digger who gives twenty dollars to a beggar is enchanting. A crusading human rights lawyer who volunteers at an animal shelter and also pauses on his way to court to give twenty dollars to a beggar makes us gag.”

(Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, How Not to Write a Novel)

Develop those cardboard characters!

To avoid flat, superficial characters, you need to create an interesting backstory for each of them, including their secret fears, insecurities, and desires, as well as their strengths and triumphs in life.

As Randy Ingermanson says, “Characters are the most important part of any novel, and the time you invest in designing them up front will pay off ten-fold when you start writing. For each of your major characters, take an hour and write a one-page summary sheet that tells:

• The character’s name
• A one-sentence summary of the character's storyline
• The character’s motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?)
• The character’s story goal (what does he/she want concretely?)
• The character’s conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?)
• The character’s epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?
• A one-paragraph summary of the character's storyline

From: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/index.php:

It’s also important to get to know your character’s fears or insecurities, secrets, attitudes, quirks, talents, likes and dislikes.

Elizabeth Lyon gives some specific advice for deepening your characters:

“Diagnosis #1 [Problem]: Underdeveloped characterization that produces inadequate depth, dimensionality, believability, or interest; in other words, flat, boring characters.
Treatment#1: …Check and revise for these key areas of character development: a clear story yearning, a traumatic past and a near past; a prominent and heroic strength and primary weakness; a host of unique personality traits, habits, likes, dislikes, talents, hobbies, attitudes, and quirks; strong emotions and motives; fears and secrets, and one or several contradictions that can be explained.”

“Diagnosis #3: Insufficient relationship, chemistry, contrast, or conflict between characters.
Treatment #3: Increase the relatedness of your characters, and you raise the level of emotions and potential of conflict. Think Peyton Place, where everybody is involved in everybody else’s business….Make your characters essential in each other’s worlds.”

 (Elizabeth Lyon, A Writer’s Guide to Fiction)

In addition, a sure-fire way to deepen your characters is to have them react more to events. Show how they’re feeling, through their words, actions, and body language. An emotionally flat character is boring.

Your protagonist needs charisma:

“GRIT, WIT, AND IT.” – That’s James Scott Bell’s answer to the question “What makes a great Lead character?” Here are a few of his points about each of these essential attributes:

GRIT – “Let me lead off with the one unbreakable rule for major characters in fiction: No wimps!
A wimp is someone who just takes it. Who reacts (barely) rather than acts. While a character may start out as a wimp, very early on he must develop real grit. He must do something. He must have forward motion. Grit is guts in action.”

If your character starts out as a wimp, don’t go on for too long about it, or you’ll turn your readers off and they’ll put down the book in disgust. No one wants to read about someone with a million different phobias or who’s wallowing in self-pity or afraid to make a move to improve their life. As Bell says, “Know your character’s inner lion. What is it that will make her roar and fight? Bring that aspect to the surface early in your story and you won’t be hampered by the wimp factor.”

WIT – Wit can rescue a character from a moment that can become just maudlin self-pity, or be overly sentimental, almost sappy, and will enliven even a negative character. As Bell says,
“Find an instance when your character can gently make fun of himself. Work that into a scene early in the book. This makes for a great first impression on the reader.” Or
“Look closely at your dialogue and tweak some lines to lightly deflate moments that might be too sentimental.”

IT – “It” means “personal magnetism – sex appeal as well as a quality that invites admiration (or envy) among others. Someone who walks into a room and draws all the attention has ‘It’.” (Bell)
Bell gives several suggestions for making sure your lead character has “it”, including:
“Work into your novel an early scene where another character is drawn to your Lead character. This can be because of sex appeal, power, or fascination. It can be subtle or overt. But this will set It in the minds of the readers.”

And don’t forget to give your main character plenty of attitude!

No wimps, please!

“Fiction writers too often forget that interesting characters are almost always characters who are active—risk-takers—highly motivated toward a goal. Many a story has been wrecked at the outset because the writer chose to write about the wrong kind of person—a character of the type we sometimes call a wimp.”
(Jack M. Bickham, The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them))

As Jessica Page Morrell says in her excellent book, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us, in the chapter “Never Write About Wimps: Creating Potent and Memorable Characters”:

“Your characters can be neurotic or despicable, vain or shallow, but they must always be vivid, fascinating, and believable, and their actions, decisions, and motives must propel the story to an inevitable conclusion.

The biggest buzz kill a writer hears is when a reader pronounces that his protagonist is bland, boring, or predictable.”
“… to carry a story, a protagonist must be compelling and memorable.”

Morrell goes on to ask the question, Is your protagonist a Hero or Zero?

“Manuscripts that feature a wimp are easy to spot and, happily, easy to fix. Usually the writer simply doesn’t realize that his character is a dishrag type because he modeled the character after a real person or he doesn’t realize that fictional characters differ from us mere mortals.”
So don’t model your hero after someone you know. He needs to be stronger, braver, more resourceful and more intelligent. As Morrell puts it, “fictional characters venture into physical and emotional territory where most of us would fear to tread.”

In conclusion, make sure your protagonists aren’t boring, perfect, annoying, or wimpy. Give them charisma, flaws, likeable traits, and above-average moral and physical strength and inner resources.

© Copyright Jodie Renner, September, 2010 

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, at The Kill Zone blog alternate Mondays, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

SHOW, DON'T TELL!

by Jodie Renner, editor & author   

A common mistake among aspiring fiction writers is to describe (tell) events as if they took place at some point in the past, instead of putting the reader right in the middle of the action and showing the events as they occur, in real time, along with the characters’ reactions, feelings, and actual words.

To clarify what is meant by “show, don’t tell”, think of it this way: Which would you rather do, go see a great movie in a theatre with a big screen and surround sound (“show”), or hear about the movie from someone else afterward (“tell”)? That’s the difference we’re talking about here.

In order to “show” instead of “tell,” you need to put your characters right in the middle of the action and play the action as it’s happening. And it’s important to show your characters’ reactions, emotions and feelings, through actions, dialogue, interior monologue and descriptive metaphors, to heighten the interest and make the reader bond with them. When you’re showing an important scene, use mostly direct dialogue, word-for-word, in quotation marks. Don’t summarize what the speaker says. And don’t forget to bring in details of the setting, and to show cause, then effect; and stimulus, then response.

As Ingermanson and Economy say in Writing Fiction for Dummies, “Showing means presenting the story to the reader using sensory information. The reader wants to see the story, hear it, smell it, feel it, and taste it, all the while experiencing the thoughts and feelings of a living, breathing character. Telling means summarizing the story for the reader in a way that skips past the sensory information and goes straight to the facts.” (p. 178)

Janet Evanovich considers “show, don’t tell” to be one of the most important principles of fiction: “Instead of stating a situation flat out, you want to let the reader discover what you're trying to say by watching a character in action and by listening to his dialogue. Showing brings your characters to life.” Put another way, “It is the difference between actors acting out an event, and the lone playwright standing on a bare stage recounting the event to the audience.”

The most basic mistake of novice writers is that they tell the reader what happened rather than showing them. Take this paragraph, a summary or telling:

Telling: “Nat knew she had to find another car, and fast. She approached some teens in a restaurant and ended up buying an old Neon for $300. She drove off quickly with it.”

Now here’s the real scene (showing) from Lisa Scottoline’s book Daddy’s Girl:

“… A take-out pizza joint stood on the far corner, and a few old cars were parked in a small lot out front—which gave Nat an idea.
She put on her pink glasses and a NASCAR cap, and hurried to the restaurant. […] The storefront contained only a few red tables, and one held a trio of teenagers hunched over a hamburger pizza with a pitcher of Coke. They looked up when Nat walked over.
‘Excuse me guys.’ She pushed up her glasses. ‘Do any of you want to sell me your car?’
The teenagers burst into raucous laughter. The tallest one, a good-looking kid with a fake diamond earring, said, ‘Yo, dude, you for real?’
‘Yes. I need a car, now. I’ll pay cash.’
‘Cash money, dude?’
[…]
Nat turned to the shortest one, who wore an Eagles knit cap. ‘What do you say? You got a car?’
‘An ’86 Neon. Got 120,000 miles and no radio, but it runs good.’ Eagles fan cracked a lopsided grin. ‘S’my stepsister’s car.’
‘I like Neons. You like cash?’
‘Yes.’ Eagles Fan’s eyes glittered. ‘And I totally hate my stepsister.’
‘Sell it, dude!’ the others shouted. ‘They’re gone the whole frickin’ weekend!’”

(… and continues like that. Great stuff! Thanks, Lisa!)

As Jack Bickham says in The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, “Not only does moment-by-moment development make the scene seem most lifelike;…it’s in a scene [with dialogue and action and reaction] where your reader gets most of his excitement. If you summarize, your reader will feel cheated – shortchanged of what he reads for – without quite knowing why.” (p. 61)

Here’s another example:

Telling: Michelle suspected her husband of cheating on her.

Showing: Michelle tossed and turned, thinking about the phone call and hang up. Finally, she got up and crept over to the chair where Eric had left his pants and shirt. She sniffed the shirt collar for perfume, then quietly went through the pants pockets. She found a piece of paper and his cell phone and tiptoed out the bedroom door to read the note and check his recent calls.

(Dialogue, inner thoughts and emotions would make this even more vivid. This could be expressed through a phone call or in-person conversation with her sister or trusted friend.)

As Shelly Thacker says in her article, “10 Tips for a Top-Notch Novel,” “Readers of popular fiction don’t want to experience the events of your novel at a distance; they want to FEEL what’s happening. They want to laugh, cry, hope, worry.” Shelly also gives another excellent piece of advice in the same article: “Strive for more dialogue than narrative. … Narrative tends to slow things down and usually leads to telling instead of showing….Showing with action and dialogue creates vivid characters and a fast pace; telling only bogs down your story.”

Also, the bulk of the scene needs to be about a conflict of some kind between characters. No conflict = no scene. The conflict part of the scene “draws readers out through a moment-by-moment drama, extending the scene suspense with pleasurable agony” (Bickham, p. 62). In order to grab your readers and intensely involve them, your scene must be lifelike and involve lots of emotion and conflict, and appeal to as many of the five senses as possible.

Scene (show) versus summary (tell):

Of course, you can’t show everything, or your book would be way too long, and it would tire your reader outs – or worse, end up boring them. According to James Scott Bell, “Sometimes a writer tells as a shortcut, to move quickly to the meaty part of the story or scene. Showing is essentially about making scenes vivid. If you try to do it constantly, the parts that are supposed to stand out won’t, and your readers will get exhausted.”

The rule, according to Bell, is “the more intense the moment, the more showing you do.” That’s the difference between scene and summary. You don’t want to describe every move your characters make at down times, or when going from one place to the other. That’s where you summarize or “tell”, to get them to the next important scene quickly, without a lot of boring detail. Instead of describing your heroine getting up, getting dressed, having breakfast, brushing her teeth, going out the door, locking the door, getting into the car, etc., etc., just start with her rushing into the elevator at work, running late for an important meeting. Narrative summary is used to get past the boring, uneventful parts quickly and on to the next scene.


Therefore, “Show, don’t tell,” like all rules, has exceptions. Scenes that are important to the story should be dramatized with showing, but often what happens between scenes (transitions) should just be told/ summarized/skipped past, so the story can progress. The objective is to find the right balance of telling versus showing, scene versus summary.

© Copyright Jodie Renner, August 2010
 
Resources: Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell; The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham; Writing Fiction for Dummies, by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy; Wikipedia; “10 Tips for a Top-Notch Novel” by Shelly Thacker (http://www.shellythacker.com/).

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. Jodie lives in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Website: www.JodieRenner.com;  Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

DIALOGUE NUTS & BOLTS

HOW TO WRITE DIALOGUE ACCURATELY 

by Jodie Renner, editor and author

See also my Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue.

In another article, I talked about how to make your dialogue less stilted and more natural-sounding. This article just provides a reference for the grammatically correct way to write dialogue, as well as some style tips for dialogue tags. Correct punctuation and form for dialogue will keep your readers from becoming distracted or confused, and maintain their focus on your story. So if you want your manuscript to look professional and your story to read smoothly, follow these technical guidelines.

First of all, start a new paragraph every time the speaker changes. On the other hand, don’t start a new paragraph if it’s still the same speaker.

Punctuation for Dialogue:

1. Put quotation marks around all spoken words. Although in Britain and Australia, it’s more common to use single quotes around dialogue, in the United States and Canada, the standard is double quotes around dialogue, with single quotes for quoting or emphasizing words or phrases within the quoted dialogue. (Italics are also used for emphasizing words or short phrases – but don’t overdo it.)


2. In North America, the punctuation always goes inside the end quote, not outside it:

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied.


3. If the person is asking a question, the question mark goes inside the quotation mark, and a period goes at the end of the whole sentence. The same goes for exclamations.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“Help!” he shouted.

Note that in the above examples, even though your word processor wants you to put a capital letter for “she” or “he”, these need to be lowercase, as they don’t start a new sentence.


4. If the person speaking is making a statement (or a suggestion or a command), replace the period (which would follow if it weren’t in quotation marks) with a comma. Then put your period at the end of the sentence.

“Let’s go home,” he said.


5. If there’s no attribute (he said, she said), put a period inside the closing quotation mark.

“Turn off the TV.”


6. If you start with the dialogue tag, put a comma after it, before your opening quotation mark and the dialogue:

He said, “My game is on.”


7. If you want to put your dialogue tag in the middle of a sentence, put a comma inside the first set of closing quotation marks, and also after the dialogue tag:

“I can never understand,” she said, “what you see in him.”


8. If one person is speaking and the dialogue goes on for more than one paragraph (not a great idea), you leave out the closing quotation marks at the end of the first paragraph, but put opening quotation marks at the beginning of the next one. Use closing quotation marks only when that person is finished speaking.


“…no matter what you do.  

“And another thing, don’t ….”


Finally, a few style tips:

1. The best dialogue tags are the simple he said and she said (or asked), or John said and Carol said (or whatever their names are). These simple dialogue tags don’t draw attention to themselves or interrupt the story line, as they’re almost invisible. Avoid tags like queried, chortled, alleged, proclaimed, conjectured, etc., which are distracting.


2. You can’t use words like “laughed” or “grinned” or “smiled” or "grimaced" as dialogue tags:

“Why, thank you,” she smiled. (x - wrong)

Why not? Because smiling is not talking; you can’t “smile” words. Change it to something like:

“Why, thank you.” She smiled at the compliment. (Note period and capital “She”)

Or “Why, thank you,” she said, as she smiled at him.
Or "Why, thank you," she said, smiling.


3. Use adverbs very sparingly. Avoid:

“Come here,” he said loudly.

“I’m in charge,” she said haughtily.


The words they say should express how they’re feeling and how they’re saying them.

 

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. Jodie lives in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

GREAT QUOTES ON WRITING

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~Elmore Leonard


When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. ~Enrique Jardiel Poncela


I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. ~James Michener


The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. ~ Michael Crichton


The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. ~Mark Twain


The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer


Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov


Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne


Writing is turning one’s worst moments into money. ~ J.P. Donleavy


My first draft is not even recognizable by the time I get to the last draft. I change everything. I consider myself at Square Zero when I finish the first draft. It’s almost like I use that draft to think through my plot. My hard copy of each draft will be dripping with ink by the time I finish, and I’ll do that several times. ~ Terri Blackstock


Writing is Rewriting.


Amateurs fall in love with every word they write. ~ William Bernhardt


Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. ~Author Unknown


Keep working. Don’t wait for inspiration. Work inspires inspiration. Keep working. ~ Michael Crichton


I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. ~ Francis Bacon

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit. ~ Richard Bach

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. ~ Gloria Steinem

I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others. ~ Moliere

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. - Jack London

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~ Walter "Red" Smith

When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time." ~ Stephen King

When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue; you sell him a whole new life. ~ Emerson

Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure. ~ Oliver Herford

I write fiction because it's a way of making statements I can disown. ~ Tom Stoppard

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~ Ray Bradbury

When I stop, the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.~ Tennessee Williams

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. ~ E.L. Doctorow

Writing a book is an adventure: it begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master and finally a tyrant. ~Winston Churchill


Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne


For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle. ~John Cheever


Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"


Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ~Gene Fowler


Every writer I know has trouble writing. ~Joseph Heller


If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. ~ Stephen King


Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. ~Sholem Asch


All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves. ~Don Marquis


There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters. ~Miguel de Cervantes


A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. ~Henry David Thoreau


You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik


If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. ~ Stephen King


Pen names are masks that allow us to unmask ourselves. ~C. Astrid Weber


A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident. ~W. Somerset Maugham, Summing Up, 1938


There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily. ~ Anthony Trollope


If I'm trying to sleep, the ideas won't stop. If I'm trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness. ~Carrie Latet


Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason. They made no such demand upon those who wrote them. ~Charles Caleb Colton


How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 19 August 1851


Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. ~From the movie Finding Forrester


An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. ~Gustave Flaubert


The scariest moment is always just before you start. ~ Stephen King (On Writing)


No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published. ~Russell Lynes


A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order. ~Jean Luc Godard


Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. ~A. Bronson Alcott


Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ~Colette


I keep little notepads all over the place to write down ideas as soon as they strike, but the ones that fill up the quickest are always the ones at my nightstand. ~Terri Guillemets


A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~ G.K. Chesterton


Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s. ~ Stephen King (On Writing)


No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman. ~Van Wyck Brooks


The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it. ~Ernest Hemingway


The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. ~Samuel Johnson


The best style is the style you don't notice. ~Somerset Maugham


The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~ Stephen King, On Writing


I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head. ~John Updike


Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible. ~Leo Tolstoy


Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed. ~ Ray Bradbury


I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible. ~ Poppy Z. Brite


Good books don't give up all their secrets at once. ~ Stephen King


Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain

MICROSOFT WORD SHORTCUTS

– compiled by Jodie Renner, www.JodieRennerEditing.com

Here are some quick ways to perform various functions on your keyboard instead of searching for the icon along the toolbar at the top with your mouse. I start with the most well-known ones, then add lesser-known shortcuts. Keep this list handy beside your keyboard or tacked up nearby. If you get used to using these, you’ll be surprised at how much time you save!

Select all – Control + A

Copy – Control + C

Cut – Control + X

Paste – Control + V

Word count – Ctrl + Shift + G

Undo – Control + Z

Save – Control + S

Print – Control + P

Open – Control + O

Close – Control + W

New document – Control + N

Bold – Control + B

Underline – Control + U

Italics – Control + I

To top of document – Control + Home

To end of document – Control + End

To start of current line – Home

To end of current line – End

Center text – Control + E

Left align – Control + L

Right align – Control + R

One-line spacing – Control + 1

Two-line spacing – Control + 2

Indent paragraph – Control + M

Unindent – Control + Shift + M

Hanging indent – Control + T

Unhang indent – Control + Shift + T

Find – Control +F

Find and Replace – Control + H

Manual page break – Control + Enter

En dash (–) – Control + minus (on the numeric pad)

Em dash (—) – Ctrl + Alt + minus

Straight apostrophe ( ' ) Type an apostrophe, then Control +Z

Small caps – Control + Shift + K

All caps – Control + Shift + A

Cents symbol (¢) – Control + /, then c

Degree symbol (°) Ctrl + Shift + 2, then space bar

To highlight a word – double-click in middle of word

To highlight a line – click in space to left

Highlight sentence – Ctrl + click in middle of sentence

Superscript – Control + Shift + +

Subscript – Control + =

Footnote – Alt + Ctrl + F

Endnote – Alt + Ctrl + D

FRENCH ACCENTS:

acute accent (é) – Ctrl + ‘ then type letter

grave accent (è) – Ctrl + ` (above Tab), letter

circumflex (ê) – Ctrl + Shift + 6, letter

cedilla c (ç) – Ctrl + comma (,) then c

OTHER SYMBOLS:

Trademark (™) – Ctrl + Alt + T

Copyright (©) – Ctrl + Alt + C

Registered (®) – Ctrl + Alt + R

Euro symbol (€) – Ctrl + Alt + E

OTHER HELPFUL “TRICKS”:

Format painter – great for when you import a paragraph in a different font into your document. Simply highlight a few words, click on “Format Painter” and highlight the new text you have just pasted in. It will now be in the same font as the rest of the page.

Double-click the Format Painter button to apply the same format changes to multiple places in the document.

This is also useful for making sure all your headings or sub-heads are in the same font and size.

If your Toolbar doesn’t have Format Painter, just use Control + Shift + C to copy the format (not the words), then Control + Shift + V to reproduce the font, size, etc. (bold, italics) on the new text. You can continue to go to other headings (or whatever you are formatting) and just keep clicking Control + Shift + V, without having to go back to the “copy” step.

For mathematical and Greek symbols: press Control + Shift + Q and your keyboard will convert to a symbols keyboard. To get back to normal font, go to the ribbon (toolbar) along the top and, in the Font window, switch back to your original font.

ALSO:

F1 – Help F7 – Reply

F2 – Undo F8 – Fwd

F3 – Redo F9 – Send

F4 – New F10 - Spell

F5 – Open F11- Save

F6 – Close F12 - Print