GotBooks Ep. 12 - The Three Most Important Words with Dave Lane

Today's episode greets Dave Lane, CEO and Managing Editor of Evolved Publishing to discuss "The Three Most Important Words" in editing: "As it happens..."
As Dave reviews novel submissions for Evolved Publishing, his three most important words guide his philosophy that the scene show us the moment that matters. Dave believes we need prose that is more "visual in its presentation" and less lazy by using telling descriptors instead of what shows us the scene as it is happening.
Covered in this episode are highlights from the Evolved Publishing website's articles in Resources for Writers: https://evolvedpub.com/resources-for-writers/
Topics include: Showing versus Telling; Infinite-Verb Phrases giving readers an “Act without an Actor;" Mixing Up Your Sentence Structure without using Infinite-Verb Phrases; and Dialogue enhancement by avoiding adverbs in the dialogue tags.
Dave warns against adverbs in dialogue tags because this goes into "telling mode," while most of the time showing is better. For example, don't get lazy and tell us the character was alarmed. Show us the provocation, and how she responds will show us the character is alarmed. While adverbs will decrease word count, they also decrease the emotional impact of the scene.
Hop over to the Resources for Writers page for these articles and the examples therein. Thanks for watching and listening, we'll see you next time!
Host: Timothy C. Ward, author of the Godsknife series of post-apocalyptic fantasy set in the rift between Earth and the Abyss. When not writing about himself in third person, he works on the next Godsknife book and his litrpg written as Theo Hodges. The dude is also a husband and dad, blessed every day.