I have been reading genre fiction since I was a kid. The closest I get to ‘fancy’ fiction is P.G. Wodehouse. I read for entertainment, am a full-blown mood reader (it can change by the hour), and DNF after several chapters if it is not entertaining me. 🧐 I’m also an unpublished writer, and when I’m reading I often notice how something was accomplished and write it down in detail. So this is those, and hopefully you find them useful and enlightening too.

I noted how Michael Murphy used a very simply worded sentence to make a full visualization pop into my mind:

I’d never ridden in a more luxurious automobile than Laura’s Packard.

It doesn’t have one detail and yet I saw the shiny metal and the wood trim and the pale leather etc, the whole shebang. An example of ‘let the reader do some of the work’. I think this would be best for things that don’t have an overly important or recurring role - readers get annoyed if you describe something fully that only shows up a couple of times or means nothing to the story. It’s perfect for things that aren’t important/frequent but you still want people to ‘see’ them. Have to pick just the right sentence to trigger what you want in the reader’s mind, and hope that it’s a fairly universal trigger - in the Packard example most people probably saw similar to what I did, plus the era the story is set in (1930’s) contributed greatly to it too.

There’s more importance put on something when you devote more than one sentence to it - and vice versa.

I reached across the desk and shook it. The handshake surprised me. I’d been expecting a wet sponge and got polished granite instead.

The first two sentences are the example - if there had been a comma or an and between them instead of a period it would have made the amount (or ‘importance’) of the surprise less, and you would have paid a bit less attention to the whole topic. Also if you made the last sentence into two sentences:

I reached across the desk and shook it. The handshake surprised me. I’d been expecting a wet sponge. I got polished granite instead.

It adds an enormous amount of weight or import to the whole thing, all four of the sentences and the moment. Adds more to the words in that previously single sentence too, by dividing it into two sentences. In the book that the quote came from, the context around it makes that much import overkill and ridiculous, but the first two sentences being two instead of one was a subtler emphasis that the author intended.

This is from a master (literally, ‘06 Edgar Grand Master), Stuart M. Kaminsky, and I don’t think these are typos - there were multiple occurences of seemingly missing commas in his books:

“O.K.,” I said standing up and putting down the cup. “I think we should call the police. Someone tried to kill me yesterday, too.”

I read the sentence both ways, with a comma after ‘I said’ and without, and it made a very noticeable difference in the speed of his movement: without the comma it’s much faster and there’s an urgency in it. With the comma it adds more notice to the standing up and the putting down of cup:

“O.K.,” I said, standing up and putting down the cup. “I think we should call the police. Someone tried to kill me yesterday, too.”

See how different it is? It’s freakin genius. Almost everyone would automatically put a comma there, and in the dozens of other spots in his novels, but he must have seen it conveyed what he wanted when he left it out.

Having the dialogue descriptor before the dialogue - apparently it’s done both ways but so far I’ve only seen one author doing the ‘pre’ version. I thought maybe it was a strange quirk of that one author but someone somewhere talked about it as if many do it. When mes reading and I read a chunk of spoken words and find out after that it was supposed to be with angst, and I hadn’t read it at all with angst, I have to go back and re-read it. I do that a lot. When I was reading this quirky writer’s pre descriptors it struck me as odd and stood out like a sore thumb most of the time, but I think if it was more common it wouldn’t seem odd and would be a big improvement. It interrupts the flow having to re-read. Ideally it’d be descriptor pre, if there is one, and if no descriptor then a tag (ie he said) after. This all hinges on how it flows, if it reads more smoothly at the end then put it there. Let me know what you think of this topic. Do you have to re-read after finding out what the dialogue was supposed to sound like?

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Another from the same topic:

His voice cracked a bit as he set the tray on a table. “Yes, Mr. Donovan?”

I like how they put the dialogue descriptor mixed fluidly with the action being done during the dialogue, and all of it beforehand so you don’t have to re-read. Otherwise it probably woulda been:

“Yes, Mr. Donovan?” he asked, his voice cracking a bit as he set the tray on a table.

Or the original reversed:

“Yes, Mr. Donovan?,” his voice cracked a bit as he set the tray on a table.

This is from The Chase by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg:

The beeps started slow and then became more and more urgent. She was initially puzzled, and then a jolt of fear coursed through her body. She knew what the beeps meant from her years as a Navy commando.

It takes out the unnecessary ‘she realized’ or ‘she remembered’, just cuts to her physical reaction. When you add in ‘then remembered and a jolt of...’ it takes the suspense/thrill down a notch:

She was initially puzzled, then remembered and a jolt of fear coursed through her body. She knew what the beeps meant from her years as a Navy commando.

Paring it down also emphasizes the jolt part, more felt, more sudden.

Another one from Evanovich, two people in a car driving along a main road in a suburb:

She gestured to the In-N-Out Burger that was coming up on Sepulveda. “Have I also earned a three-by-three with fries and a chocolate shake?”

Liked the ‘that was coming up on Sepulveda’ and the visuals that painted, you felt like you were in the car and could see that burger place coming up ahead along on your right. Much better than:

She gestured to the In-N-Out Burger that was up ahead on Sepulveda.

This from Two For The Show by Jonathan Stone, and the different way he introduces a sudden thing:

The actual, the physical, invades the cerebral. Because I’m alone at my computer one minute, and I’m being knocked around my own condominium the next. Roughed up, slapped hard around the ears and the back of the head, shoved hard against my own bare walls.

“Miss Rook,” whispered my employer, “run.”

We exploded forward, heading to the light at the end of the passageway.

I’m always trying to describe full-out bolt running and this ‘exploded’ is perfect for that visual I’m trying to convey.

Smith dropped the box and burst to the door to push the button that would put the building into lockdown.

Another great descriptive word to ‘see’ that fast sudden frenetic movement.

“Well, this is certainly interesting news,” he said, in a tone of dismissal. “Please let me know what you find out.”

The ‘tone of dismissal’ completely reverses the usual tone of those words. Using the previous technique (☝🏻) of putting the descriptor before the dialogue:

He said, in a tone of dismissal, “Well, this is certainly interesting news. Please let me know what you find out.”

Is that better? 🤔 With the original I had to re-read the first part of the dialogue after I found out it wasn’t the slightly jovial tone I assumed it was.

He turned and ran into the darkness, the faint light of the grillwork making a rippling pattern on his retreating back.

I like the visual of this, something common you see on tv/movies but here described in words. The characters are on the level below the grillwork, in the dim, and there are lights here and there in the level above, where grillwork is the floor.

With trembling slowness she reached out and took hold of the locket. She clutched it so tightly her fist shook, and she pulled it to her chest.

Another for creating the right visual, the ‘pulled it’ part, if it was a large thing like a blanket or person it would have a different meaning (dragging). But becuz it’s completely within her hand it’s describing the speed and intensity instead.

Charlie’s eyes hunted for any alternative, but they found none.

Context for this is that he’s not looking at objects, he’s just looking in the middle distance. Perfectly describes that visual.

“How do you feel?” Jackaby said.

“Good.” Jenny considered the question earnestly. “I feel good. I thought I would hate her. I thought I would want to hurt her, but I don’t. Not really. It feels strangely liberating.”

The ‘considered the question earnestly’ creates not only her expression but also the tone of and the way the words are spoken.

As the impulse to leave gained enough momentum to raise Max from his chair, the door opened and in walked Dr. Ashley Connor.

The first part creates a more specific visual in your mind of how he looks rising from the chair.

Colin blinked his surprise and then awarded me with a smile that reached deep into his eyes. “I would like that very much.”

I love the description of his eyes, a great way to describe what we’ve all seen but might have trouble putting into words.

He stood awkwardly for a second, then, like an actor receiving whispered urgings from a stagehand, suddenly stuck out his hand.

Can see that clear as day, and without the stagehand part it would ‘look’ different:

He stood awkwardly for a second, then suddenly stuck out his hand.

I hope you have some new tricks up your ink-stained sleeve from these. Or inspiration for crafting your paragraphs. I’m thinking of having a Pt. 2 to this - with your writer’s notes, so please send them along directly to me or in the comments! Writerly notes about the way things were written, by the way, not book quotes - I have a seperate recurring series for those. 👇🏻 If I get enough of them I’ll have a Pt. 2 featuring your writer’s notes, with your name and a link to your profile or substack.

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