The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 94 – The ONE Word You Should STOP Starting Sentences With!

Is there ONE word that you really, really, need to avoid using when writing?

Autumn and Jesper is searching for the answer (and finds it) in episode 94 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

Tune in for this fun and entertaining episode.

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (1s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from WRITING Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm Autumn. This is episode 94 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast and you know, Autumn I after the last week's episode where we've discussed common Writing Advice we hate the most THE Irene is just not quite last on me that we are going to share. WRITING advise on which words to start sentences with it, but it's not typical. Writing Advice, I like this topic because it's been in the que for a very long time.

Autumn (1m 3s):
One of the, it it's one of the one's that came with you when we formed the partnership and I've always been curious about what this word is for. What are the ones that two or three years I've been like, I wonder what the word is that you shouldn't start Sentences and I found him and I can't wait to share it with people. So, but that's not what we're going to talk about first. Well, I almost wanted to, no, now you're going to have to wait or are not there yet, because I know you teased me before we started that you have some news and so you've got to fess up now.

Jesper (1m 38s):
Okay. Yeah. Well, finally, finally, you have some news are around the house sale. Yeah. So that the couple who were, or who made this conditional purchased contract on our house, we still have to sell their own apartment. They have talked about the episodes. They have finally sold their apartment and now, Oh my God. So this is a real like contract sale. Well, yeah, so now we are inside the one week grace period, where they are entitled to change their mind and cancel the contract.

Jesper (2m 13s):
It's like, it's like a, a basic or a standard contract clause. So I don't think it'll happen. But it's basically, for cases, like, for example, if the person who are now bought the apartment, let's say that this person cannot get a loan into a bank. Even though they said that they could, for example, than this is the week whereby they have to step out of the contract and say, Oh, by the way, we, we don't want to do this anyway. And then of course everything would stop, but that's basically the only thing.

Jesper (2m 44s):
That'll stop it now. So if we get to this weekend and we haven't heard anything until then, then its final now, all right. And the house is sold. You have to tell me, you can make me wait for the Podcast. So it has so many. Yes.

Autumn (3m 0s):
Dear listener. He does this to me too, is not just you. It's not fair. That's so exciting. I am keeping my fingers crossed. OK. So one week more, hopefully just one week more.

Jesper (3m 15s):
Yeah. Basically less than one week, right? Yeah, because we are recording this on the Monday. So yeah, once we get to Friday evening, if we haven't heard of it until then, then its final. 18 months of sales process has then come to an end. So yeah.

Autumn (3m 31s):
Oh, I will be on pins and needles all week waiting to hear. You will have to let me know.

Jesper (3m 38s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remind me if I forget.

Autumn (3m 41s):
Yeah, I will. Considering the time difference before you go to sleep on Friday, I will send an email saying, Hey, what happened? Alright.

Jesper (3m 49s):
Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. So basically this deal means that we have to be out and let's assume that everything goes fine now. Ah, so this means that we have to be out of this house by the 1st of January, 2021 at the latest. Wow. Yeah. I got to tell you, because the re the real estate agent called me when he sort of said that the Yeah now they sold their apartment and, and we are basically entering the one week grace period here.

Jesper (4m 20s):
So when he called me There, he also said, Hey dude, do you think that maybe we could arrange it so that the house is handled over to the new owners, perhaps like mid December or something, because I really don't wanna work on the 1st of January. Yeah.

Autumn (4m 36s):
That is too funny.

Jesper (4m 38s):
Yeah. Yeah. I would say, let's see. Let's see. I mean, of course, if, I mean, we, we need to start searching for somewhere, some place else to live now. But of course, if we find something, then as soon as we find something, then basically we can hand over the house if it happened before and right. At least buy the 1st of January and we have to be out. So we have to have found something. Yeah.

Autumn (5m 3s):
Are you gonna holidays and everything? I am sure you guys will probably try to be somewhere else so that you're not packing in the middle of Christmas with the kids. That would be rough. I'm sure are excited, but still yeah.

Jesper (5m 16s):
Yeah. Well basically we would like too, you know, the sooner we can find something else and get out of here the better. So if its possible to find something within the next months and a half or, or two, then you know, if, if its possible to move by the 1st of November, for example, then will do so. But let me see how it all pans out. We don't know yet because we're gonna start while we've been on these different wait list for, for places that we can rent four, the last one and a half year.

Jesper (5m 48s):
But we are on a passive, you know, we're passive on the waitlist, meaning that we don't know if there's anything available and its not until this coming weekend. Once this grace period comes to an end that I'm going to flip it to active. And when I do then we will we'll if there's anything available, then will be told that, Oh great, there is this. You can rent write, but it could also be that there is nothing available and then will have to look around it. But the real estate agent had promised us that, that they would try to help us find something that we could rent or that they will try to post and that and network and stuff.

Jesper (6m 24s):
So

Autumn (6m 26s):
They don't wanna work over January one. We'll probably try really hard or else.

Jesper (6m 33s):
Yeah. Well at least of course the real estate agent have a very good network. Right? So hopefully they will be something we can rent somewhere in at least in close proximity to where we eventually want to move as well. We ideally we can rent something in the same city that we want to go to So otherwise its a bit counterproductive, but yeah,

Autumn (6m 51s):
That it would be yeah. So that you would wanna get all your stuff over there and it will be so much easier, especially if you need to store anything are going to access it. It'll be good to be all in one spot.

Jesper (7m 4s):
Yeah. So that's a yeah, yeah. That's enough for me.

Autumn (7m 10s):
No. Well, nothing exciting. I am in my husband's back M my writing is going well, I've got some graphic design stuff going. Well the fall, whether has set in, which is, and it's funny though, a yellow leaves are now are trickling down from the tree's and are just, Hmm. It's just feeling like false. So its so exciting to see that it's this changing season. So all I can say is things are going good. Knock on wood. No COVID

Jesper (7m 40s):
Yeah. And but I think there's a lot of w well, I guess that's much further South or something, but isn't there are some still issues with fire is going on and the us all the way

Autumn (7m 50s):
That was filed or something horrible that's you know, out West. So we were I'm on the East coast, but yeah, so yeah, 2000 plus miles away. But where my husband was when he was traveling, he was, you know, he, they were getting small guns in the cities are smoke and smoke where he was. And that was still, you know, five to 600 miles away from the fires. It's it's bad, but nothing too close to where I am at, its on the East coast. It's been pretty quiet so far, but again, knock on wood.

Autumn (8m 22s):
You never know what we're in. We're still in severe drought as well. So you never know.

Jesper (8m 27s):
No. Yeah. I was actually pretty sad because one of the, one of the podcasts I listened to the, one of the host explained how he started. I think she's five or something like that. And he explained how his daughter thinks that smokey is where the condition now, because they asked, when did he gets asked, how is the weather? She just said it's Smokie. And that's a pretty sad, right? That is funny. But it's also sad. Yeah,

Autumn (8m 53s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean we've driven through that area of California right after the paradise fire, which was a couple of years ago now. And we saw the community that had burned down and we saw people walking up the highway with like, you know, the little wheel bags. She was here at airports and they were just walking in a daze just North because they've lost everything. That's all they have. And it's, it's one thing to see it on the here and on the news, but to have driven through it and to see the lives overturned by it is just so traumatic that Yeah I my heart goes out to them, but it's such a, so much going on in this world where you, Oh, we just need an earthquake or a volcano.

Autumn (9m 34s):
And I think will pretty much have fire wind weather where we've got a couple of hurricanes coming. So yeah. That's the next thing earthquake. That's my guess.

Jesper (9m 43s):
Yeah. That's a way to turn this Podcast depressive.

Autumn (9m 46s):
Yeah. We'll try to tear it up

Jesper (9m 50s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast this is one of those famous last chance for a minute.

Autumn (9m 59s):
Yeah, that's right. So this is our last Roundup call that you wanted to join us on Patreon. Now is the time there is a something special going on over there. Yeah, indeed. And it runs only until the 19th

Jesper (10m 13s):
October. So you better get moving if you wanna join a very special giveaway that we are offering a golden ticket to our brand new and upcoming world building course. And by the way, I got to say that this cause is going to blow your mind. It has every thing and I mean, everything you can think of when it comes to FANTASY world-building so there is a reason why we spent two years building this, right?

Autumn (10m 40s):
Yeah. Yeah. I had to bet when I was working on those last module's and uploading 'em and that's where we got, we go beyond all the world building and we get into tieing world-building and storytelling together and weaving it all into something that is not an info dump. And they were like, we covered this to what are we just throwing in the kitchen sinks. So it has everything, you know, you would go from, okay, I'm lost in my world, building two, having a phenomenal world that you know, how to tie into your story as well as having developed a phenomenal story along the way.

Autumn (11m 14s):
So yeah, it's a one stop, you know, who has an amazing course? I can't believe it. That is almost done. So yeah,

Jesper (11m 19s):
But the good news is that the winter of the golden ticket will get access for free as part, as an exclusive VIP opening of the course and all of those not included in the VIP opening.

Autumn (11m 31s):
Well, they will just have to wait longer to get access to the course, I guess until 2021 probably is when will open it and why, but yeah. Yeah. So this is your only chance to get in on 2020, except for a few invite only kind of opportunities and this golden ticket,

Jesper (11m 49s):
But since only one person will win the golden ticket we have cos like we always do came up with a solution as to how we could reward everyone. We were just too nice. And I don't know were just nice. Were not to do now.

Autumn (12m 5s):
Yeah, that's true. I think, and its a good till they were going to do it, but we haven't decided yet to have we thought was going to either be a webinar or a prerecorded course module. Cause goodness knows we're good at doing those by email, but its going to be on a totally different way, a different strategy for advertising and what we call it. It was a reader's journey. So how do you think this is just really cool because I think the way, you know, I have to admit you come up with most, have this on your own, but the way that you've taken all of this information to develop way of advertising really kind of draws on a reader and turns him into a fan and we are going to like do this for the people who join us on Patrion.

Autumn (12m 45s):
Umm, for free, it's just a, well I guess you have to join Patrion. So that's a dollar, that's not a bad deal.

Jesper (12m 54s):
No, not at all. And of course all our existing patrons support us. They will get access to this for free as well. And they will also be entered into the golden ticket draw automatically. So everyone who joins us before the 19th of October will be eligible for four, this report. So you better go and check it out if you're interested. And I think, yeah, as you said, you know, for dollar a month, that's a pretty good deal.

Autumn (13m 22s):
I think it'd be really exciting. I mean it's no matter what, whether you just get the webinar or if you actually get the world building course for a dollar, I mean obviously you can join for five or 10, but a dollar as the starting level of that is pretty darn good. Yeah.

Jesper (13m 38s):
Yeah. And you also get all of the other rewards that we offer there. Not to mention that there is the actually hundreds of dedicated patron post designed to help you with your other career. And you're riding that you will get access too, as soon as you join. So if that sounds good, you can just follow the link two Patriots in the show notes as well. We hope to see you there.

Autumn (13m 59s):
Absolutely. And speaking of seeing people, so one of the things we don't talk about much with the Am Writing Fantasy when you do join us through the website or pick up something and you get these re these email tips that I've mentioned before is just like, I cannot believe we send out some of these email tips, like every, maybe once a month, about every three weeks they come. But did you see that email from Timo who thanked us? He, as he said a million times, thank you for the idea's in this email content marketing ideas in between releases is something that I've always struggled with.

Autumn (14m 31s):
And I wanted to do short stories, flux fiction, but it was never sure what parts of the actual writing experience would be remotely interesting to us as readers. So he thanked us for sending along one of our newsletters and you know, it's pretty cool when you have a newsletter that gets those kinds of responses, just for something you give away. Anyway, like every month I wanted to make sure you had seen it. And, but the readers know that, Hey, you know, we have a pretty awesome new, it's a letter that helps you out and keeps you going monthly.

Autumn (15m 3s):
So check it out

Jesper (15m 10s):
For the most part today. I think I'll let you take the driving seat on this one. Autumn often when the thoughts that often when the subject, I should say it is about craft,

Autumn (15m 22s):
Then you, most of them

Jesper (15m 24s):
At the time of the better teacher, I do have some reflections prepared the like, and thought that I could supplement with. But a, I think I'll leave it to you to sort of take us through this topic here.

Autumn (15m 36s):
All right. Well, I was laughing because I want to know how you manage this. This has two episodes in the row. I did homework and we haven't hit episode a hundred yet. So I don't know what's going on here. You figured out how to make me do homework. And I don't know, I'm usually the one who wings it and I came prepared today. So well,

Jesper (15m 56s):
Do you want to post to figure it out?

Autumn (15m 59s):
Yeah. You developed a strategy to get, yeah, that was not an issue. Maybe it's cause I finish the world building a course and I had more free time in, so maybe, you know, that other side that the good students site is coming back out after 20 some years maybe. But yeah. So you have, like I mentioned at the top of the episode, do you had had this topic since we decided to combine ideas and we develop the YouTube channel and built on the platform you had already developed with me and a FANTASY and we created the YouTube channel.

Autumn (16m 30s):
And so this, I dunno how long this one has been sitting in your idea that list. Yeah, I was going to say, it's been at least two years, but you had this topic that is stopping set up, starting sentences with this word. And that's just the nature of curiosity with the I'm. Like, I wonder if what that word is, when should you stop certain things?

Jesper (16m 52s):
Thing is when I, when I added that topic into the list of ideas that we could record a podcast about, I have no idea what that word is. You can just put that in there.

Autumn (17m 2s):
Yeah. We weren't even working together at the time. And lo and behold, you know, two years later it's finally going to happen. And I found that word because it like, you know, I am also an editor and writing coach on it, I would say on this side, but I have got so many sides going that I've got to be an octagonal dice or something to say it's one of the side anymore. But yeah, I finally was sitting when it was a week or so ago when we were deciding topics for the month.

Autumn (17m 32s):
And I said, I know what that word is. Gosh, started I know what it is. So we can finally have this podcast and I'm so excited. So do you want to know what the secret, where it is that you have to stop? Starting Sentences with this word and I know,

Jesper (17m 47s):
Yeah, I guess since I a topic two years ago and I still don't know what it is, I guess I should be fairly curious by now, right?

Autumn (17m 55s):
Yeah. Well hopefully we drummed up the tension for the listener, but so yes, AF this is consolidated Advice after helping many, many novice authors that I realized with the word was, and what I see over and over again with new authors is 90% of the time they're starting Sentences with he or she sheet with a pronoun and just don't stop. Starting 90% of your senses with this word. And I've got some good reasons. And I haven't example, so do you want to hear an example or a written this way?

Autumn (18m 30s):
And this is no one else's work. I wrote this, right?

Jesper (18m 34s):
Yeah. It was just about to say, hopefully you're not going to hang somebody out to dry.

Autumn (18m 39s):
We broke this and what's, what's sad is I actually had a right with the, what the end example will share at the end of the Episode. I had to start with that one and then backtracking to do this one big, because I, I, couldn't write it this way until I had something else to try to manipulate backwards. So it's kind of sad, but all right. So here's my example. He smelled Woodsmoke trapped by the trees. He thought it was from the campfire of the night before he realized that the birds had stopped singing. He halted his horse who started in Paul on the ground.

Autumn (19m 9s):
He wondered what was bothering her. He tried to keep her steady. As she moved sideways, he noticed a warm breeze that smelled a bit like sulfur. He realized what it was. He kicked his horse as flames erupted around him and his horse bolted. So that was nine Sentences. All of them started with the pronoun that a lot of he, for sure, especially when you read it, it's one thing to read it on a page, but when you hear it, it really does bring out the pronoun in the heat. But yeah. So why do you think this is a problem, especially for a reader?

Autumn (19m 43s):
Yeah. Well,

Jesper (19m 45s):
For one, you know, your eye starts to glaze over that kind of stuff. You, if you start skipping ahead, you know, and, and you, you miss you miss the details and by that, maybe its not the details in the self that is important. But what is important is that you're not getting immersed into the story and into the text because you start noticing all these he's you start skipping ahead. Oh there's more and there's more, there's more and it's just, it doesn't become an immersive story,

Autumn (20m 12s):
Right? No, it's just, there is something I tried to in the sense of that or a little varied, I tried to make it more active voice and passive. I tried not to make it a bad Writing you know, I was not, he was sitting and he was doing this and he was doing that. That was really, you know, make sure you're at least active voices. Was he halted? So he's doing things, but its still becomes monotonous. It's the tone has been not necessarily as the sentence structure has always the same in your brain. I stick just kind of starts going, Oh my goodness, I just need something else.

Autumn (20m 46s):
Something to on its like having the same Miele every single day and you just want something different in your brain is craving something different. So like you said, readers will start skipping ahead. I know as an editor on, I had passage's like this and I'm like, Oh really? I just, I start changing things just because I need to change it as well. So that's, that's why it's becomes an issue as, because it's just, your reader's are not going to see it. And even though you are doing things right with the active tone, you know, ACTA verbs, it's still, there is no variety they're and you know, readers want a feast.

Autumn (21m 24s):
They want to a banquet or they don't want, you know, a ham and cheese sandwich every single day. It's just, no you don't you come back for that, right?

Jesper (21m 32s):
No, that's right. Yeah. I had the, I had three different words that I sort of have I I tried to think about what Word do. I think I would be the one's that you should start with a, I agree with your choice water, but I did have three that I picked, so Oh, maybe I could just get him as well and then you can let me know what you think.

Autumn (21m 55s):
Yeah, absolutely.

Jesper (21m 58s):
Yeah, because the first one, well that is of course, if your writing first person than you are going to use it a lot. Yes, very true. And I think, or at least try not to use it at the beginning of every sentence because just like he basically

Autumn (22m 17s):
Really annoying. It came to me, it's the exact same Advice as if you're using the app, when you start using that same word is just you that's all you see. And it's, especially with Tommy With I becomes very self centered and I start just thinking, Oh gosh, this character only ever thinks about themselves. And I mean you're in that point of view, but there's something about it that I just find offensive So yeah. I have a real, I am. I actually avoid story's in first person. Cause I've a big problem with them and The I the eyes as a part of it.

Jesper (22m 45s):
Yeah. And my next one, I think it's more like, it's probably more like a question to you if you think it's bad on it at all. Okay. But yeah. Yeah. I noticed that the here on the podcast, for example, when we record PODCAST I tend to start sentences with the words. So a lot of it just works well as one of those transition words, you know, when we kick off a new topic. So

Autumn (23m 10s):
Yeah. So work best, avoid it at the beginning of sentences. Do you think that, I think in technical Writing EA are like, when you're writing your novel, you can have it every once in awhile because it is a good word and there's a speaking patterns, so is better than EI or those are just a really bad filler words. But it definitely, if you realize that you're writing, so like every other words, every other sentence, two Join two sentences are two thoughts together then, and you need to work on a few other ones, but I honestly don't hear you saying that.

Autumn (23m 45s):
And I do when I'm writing it. It is when I had to self edit out, I want to do. And so, and I'm like, okay, Nope, starting the sentence with something else. Not that again. I live at myself too. How many times I could use so in a way in a page, because it is a good transition Word and you just don't want to overuse it. Yeah.

Jesper (24m 3s):
Yeah. Good point. So

Autumn (24m 11s):
Do you have another one?

Jesper (24m 13s):
Yeah, I do have another one third option. I prepared a and I actually prepare to example

Autumn (24m 22s):
Cool as well. Excellent.

Jesper (24m 25s):
Yeah. It's it's when you start Sentences with, with, with, with, with the words with,

Autumn (24m 32s):
Yeah. All right. All right.

Jesper (24m 34s):
Yeah. I think that it might not always be the best way to start a sentence, you know, in many cases to work with can just be cut and yeah.

Autumn (24m 43s):
What if my stomach,

Jesper (24m 45s):
A very minor rewrite to actually make the census a flow better without losing its meaning. So I made an example here. Yeah,

Autumn (24m 52s):
That'd be fantastic. Okay.

Jesper (24m 54s):
OK. So here we go with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast out Writing Advice the world has come to an end.

Autumn (25m 1s):
Yeah. I like your example

Jesper (25m 6s):
Versus the sentence, The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast dishing out Writing Advice. Has the world come to an end?

Autumn (25m 11s):
Yes, it is. The second, the second one is so much better. It has more authoritative tone. It's more of a stance. You can feel the stands of it. The other ones just that With is weakened as a whole entire sentence structure. So its, it might work in a sentence like an a paragraph, but if you really want that to be your tag line or a concrete example, you need to get rid of the width.

Jesper (25m 39s):
Yeah. Yeah. I, it says it exactly the same thing. I just feel like it's much more efficient.

Autumn (25m 44s):
Yeah. This, yes. I agree. The second one is much more impactful.

Jesper (25m 49s):
Yeah. Okay. So that was my three contributions to this conversation. Yeah.

Autumn (25m 57s):
All right. Well I have some ways to tighten up your Writing, especially if you're using pronouns or like he shear, I mean, if you're doing this, but it works with everything we've talked about. I mean another good example, it's just a sentence starter, but that almost every like 90% of the, that in your novel, you can go in and edit out, but that's later in the sentence, but we're not, we're not focusing on things that are coming later. We were talking about the stuff before the verb a so if you're using, these are some ways of looking at and tightening up your WRITING is as you know, tips on what to do in the first one is especially when you're using pronouns that he shear.

Autumn (26m 33s):
I, if you didn't notice my example, you're you know, what is a guy? Cause they used hee, but you don't know whose talking using the, I mean, especially when you start having several characters, especially several the same gender. That's the reason I actually chose. And this example that the horse was a female because I wanted to throw in, in a different pronoun. I figured one more. He used us going to be way too much. And an example that you can see, I know visually I do better and much more visual. So I like to read what I'm talking about.

Autumn (27m 5s):
If I heard this on a podcast, I'd be like, can you, can you write that down, please? That would be me. So you use names, you need to know when you have 42 male characters or a three women or something that you need to know who was, who, so your going to be using first names a lot more frequently than you would use. Say if you were actually talking to somebody, you just have to use the names so you can differentiate. And when you start using like her arm and it was referring back to the noun or the pronoun later in the sentence, if you don't have some of the like tissues arm, if you don't throw some of those other clues in there, you might get readers confused about whose arm is where.

Autumn (27m 45s):
So do you keep that in mind and try to read through after you write, to make sure that you, your leader pronouns and adjectives and stuff are referring to the right person. I see this a lot in writing that you start throwing in here is here. And I don't know whose doing what anymore and its just an old, it's just a brouhaha and you just don't wanna do that. So use names. You are gonna have to use names are a lot more. So that's my biggest piece of advice, especially just if I had broken up the, the example with just a name every once in awhile, it would have made a much more impactful.

Autumn (28m 22s):
All right. So you wanna hear Advice number two? Who do you have anything to say about using a name? Yeah,

Jesper (28m 27s):
No, no. I agree with, like you said, so carry on.

Autumn (28m 30s):
Yeah. So sentence variation, M structure as well as length. And that's definitely something when you're always starting a pronoun or a noun and then the verb and then, you know, something, some, you know, some phrase it's all in the same sentence, structure it like I've mentioned its its getting a ham and cheese sandwich and you want the feast. Do you want the bank? What? You need to break up things with starter clauses, just something different questions, something that's going to break up. That sentence structure, make things shorter.

Autumn (29m 0s):
You know, action sentences are so nice when they're snappy in their short, like three or three words long. That's a fantastic sentence. And then vary that with something that's, you know, 15 words, 20 words, you can break it up because reader's will speed up in. They'll slow down and its a wonderful way to get through a paragraph and they pay more attention when you start doing things like that. So it's a wonderful way to break up the monotony and keep someone's attention so that their not just starting to glaze over because it's he said something, right?

Jesper (29m 34s):
Yeah. And it is actually also using the sentence with the length of them. But the part, the structure of the paragraph to increase the momentum and increase the pacing. It's a quite well, I don't want, I don't even know if I could call it a trick because it's not a trick as a way to do it, but it's, it's very good to be mindful about, you know, that the, for example, if something, if your in the middle of a fight scene or something, then be mindful that OK, I'm just gonna right. A couple of a very short choppy sentences here to basically increase the pace of, of, of what is happening because it, it goes well with where the action on the page.

Jesper (30m 13s):
Right. So I think it's extremely helpful to be mindful about it. And it's so simple, but sometimes it's not until somebody tells you about it that you actually start thinking about, Oh yeah, I guess, yeah, that's not. And then you just start doing it, but, and it makes it a really big difference. But somebody has to tell you to the first place.

Autumn (30m 36s):
Yeah. Well we're telling you now it is good. Yeah. It is almost like music notes and they do call it beats. It is a type of way of setting the beet or the tone. And you know, if you have a steady drum, your going to eventually just start ignoring it. But if you start breaking it up, you will definitely here something different. You we'll be more aware. That's what you are doing with the sentence variation. You are setting your beats, your setting, your peace, and you're selling your tone. And it's one thing. Once you realize that, that this is sort of a composition and a piece of music and you start varying things.

Autumn (31m 10s):
Yes. I think your writing just kind of perks up the next level and yeah,

Jesper (31m 14s):
It feels good. All right.

Autumn (31m 17s):
Yeah. So yes. All right. So my advice, number three at a five. What to know what that in the next one is,

Jesper (31m 26s):
Do you want me to guess? Right.

Autumn (31m 28s):
Oh, I shared it with you. So that wouldn't be fair. I will admit that. So I will share. All right. So the third one is dialogue. If you didn't notice this a little paragraph example, there was no dialogue. Dialogue is a wonderful way to break things up. Unless of course you're just using, he said, and she said, because that's totally cheating. It's just doing the same thing. So use other dialogue tags. As we talked about this in the last episode, do you know Fantasy as one of the ones where you can get away with using growled and whispered and shouted, these are a wonderful dialog tags.

Autumn (32m 6s):
Technically they're telling us not showing emotion, but the FANTASY you get all the way with it a lot more because the readers, I think we do see said we wanna see nuances like grout or whispered and things. And of course there's action tags, action tag's or when the characters or physically doing something than you never even said, who said it? Its just because with the reader's mind, if you have dialogue in the same sentence with an action, they ought to a reader will automatically think that whoever is in that same sentence or a line is the same person who's.

Autumn (32m 39s):
So like put that away. He said, you know, he put the mug down instead of saying, he said that he put to put the mug down, you know, it's by doing the action at the same time and having the dialogue it's the same sentence or not the same sentence of same line of text. The reader will think that it, the person who is doing the action is also the person speaking. And so actually the tags are a fantastic way of just skipping the whole said ground whispered, shouted and breaking that up and having something completely different.

Autumn (33m 12s):
And it's definitely changing your sentence structure.

Jesper (33m 16s):
Yeah. And it is also a nice way of when, when we were talking about, well starting sentences with words, write this is also a different way to break it up and change it out and make Sentences started in different ways. Umm, you know, for example, the Starting because you could also put the action TAC in front of the, the, the dialogue. So that's another way you can sort of break up and start the censuses in a different way and just making sure it's, you know, that every paragraph start differently and not put the same word, but also not in the same way.

Jesper (33m 52s):
So yeah. It makes a huge difference.

Autumn (33m 54s):
Yeah. And that's where it's also so important not to have two people speaking in the same paragraph, you know, I do an end break and next, you know, as soon as a speaker changes, hit, enter and do a new paragraph because it gets confusing if you have too many people talking in the same paragraph and if you're using action tags, but like you said, you know, he walked to the window. When do you think she's coming home? You know, it's the same person who just walked to the window. That is just it this way the reader thinks.

Autumn (34m 24s):
But again, if you have someone else talking right after that year, just a loss so we can get confused. Don't do that. And I would say one last thing on dialogue two, it breaks up the texts visually you've got a lot more white space. And so that's kind of a nice break in all of that pros for the reader as well. So sometimes adding in white space is not a bad thing. No I yeah.

Jesper (34m 47s):
Say in most cases its actually a good thing because at least as a reader, I know with myself at least a week, if I, if I had to, well I always read on the Kindle. Right. But every time I changed the page on the Kindle, if every single page has just blocks of text, it doesn't take them a lot more like three or four pages because I feel like, Oh my God, this is,

Autumn (35m 8s):
Yeah. It's just nice to see. Or a lot of white spaces. Oh cool. You're not, there's something nice about, I know this guy, this page he's going to fly by. Yeah.

Jesper (35m 15s):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know why, but it just feels nice to To

Autumn (35m 19s):
Yeah. It feels like, okay, I'm reading fast. Yeah. What the hell does read faster. So is yeah, definitely. Yeah. I agree. It's just, it kind of makes it It again, it's a different type of changing the a B, but its so much its so nice to have, but yeah, if you're your reading, like it as an academic papers, its page after page of pros and you're like, Oh, you know, you feel like you're just eating heavy carbs. Yes. I love food. All my food. All my analogies are food. I love food. Okay. Sorry. I have dinner right after we record podcasts.

Autumn (35m 50s):
So just keep that in mind. So a number for advice or are you ready? Yes. All right. Description description is okay. Okay. Once in a while set the scene. I mentioned in the example, you know, there's a little bit of wood smoke. You know, you mentioned the trees and that there had been campfire of the night before, but there really isn't much scene setting description. You don't want to do pages. You don't really want to do solid paragraphs of description, but you can set the scene with the, you know, a little bit of a description about what maybe the trees looks like or you know, why is he riding a horse?

Autumn (36m 29s):
What does he carrying with them? Those are fine things to add in. And by doing that, most likely you're going to get rid of the pronoun cause you are going to be due to describing the florist. So that's already something different. So your breaking it up the little bit, you're gonna change up the tax. You are going to change up the sentence and that's exciting. So definitely add in some description.

Jesper (36m 49s):
Yeah. I only have one caveat to that.

Autumn (36m 51s):
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Jesper (36m 58s):
The only caveat that I would have is that if the sentence that we are talking about right now is the first sentence of the novel, please don't start by describing the cloud's or how its raining or something like that.

Autumn (37m 12s):
Yeah. Cause I should say the, whether or not you do not start a number like that. No, always the best way you can get you enough for you to start with the pronouns. But if you can start with the main character are doing something or saying something is a much better way than you say, you know the sky look threatening tonight. It's just, yeah.

Jesper (37m 33s):
Okay. Well this has been So I was just about to use a swear word. They put there there's been so many novels where it always starts with how, how it is. It's the lightning or if there's a storm or its raining worse than it has been raining for 200 years or

Autumn (37m 51s):
I don't care, you don't know enough about the place to care about the weather. You need to care about the place first to know that it's unusual. I agree. Nope. That's a very good caveat. I I this was the second point of Episode. I totally agree with you. So all right.

Jesper (38m 9s):
Yeah. That's amazing. You can make a habit out of that. I wouldn't mind.

Autumn (38m 11s):
Yeah. And we'll see, ya know, I'm stubborn. So the feisty Syed. All right. So we are up to my fifth and final piece of advice. So things to do to break up your writing and make it more interesting. And that is if you're, especially if you're writing in third person, this you should right in something called deep I point of view, deep POV, which when you do that, your it's like writing in the first person, but your still using key. And she, so when your doing that, you actually avoid words like thought or wondered or looked because the character does it.

Autumn (38m 50s):
It's just like writing in first person. So if you would say you don't usually say, I thought about this, you would just give your thoughts. And that is a different way of writing. And by doing that and removing, he thought he wondered you drop off that pronoun and you make the sentence much more impactful. You just put it on the thought, you've just put in what he sees and that will totally change up your writing tone and make it much more interesting and also draws a connection deeper almost like you're riding in first person.

Autumn (39m 22s):
So that will really connect better with a reader. They will sync a lot better with a character. And if you want to fantastic example of this, pick up a George RR Martin, because he, he is a master of deep POV. And when you pick up one chapter and you switch to a different chapter, his tone and his writing style completely changes to fit that character. And the way that character sees and thinks, and even the metaphors in the analogy is at that character will think of. And it's just when you do that anyway, that level, it is fantastic writings.

Autumn (39m 56s):
So fantastic. You know, a really good example better than my example, but I, you know, I was just doing it for the podcast. We weren't going to go that deeply, but that is definitely my final ONE, you know, if you don't know what deep POV is, you know, put it in the comments so we can try to describe that better. We can link you to some blog posts or, or when, you know, I dunno if we could do a whole podcast on deep POV if people want to just let us know.

Jesper (40m 21s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do find it important that you know, that you are Sentences starts strong and also finish strong. I mean perhaps they have to finish even stronger than they started. But I think for me about all that we've talked about in this episode, I would almost say that the real trick isn't so much about which words to avoid. I do agree with what, the examples that you've given us here and, and your point about starting with he or she all the time.

Jesper (40m 53s):
I do agree with that, but, but I think that the real trick isn't that much about what to avoid, but it's much more about understanding the structure of sentences and paragraphs and making sure that you use a varied way of writing so that it doesn't become monotonous. And you just sit there and, and it's the same under the same and the same. Right? I think that is really the main takeaway modern it is to avoid a specific word.

Jesper (41m 25s):
Right?

Autumn (41m 25s):
Agree. I think that has definitely the main take away. I mean, if you need to fix the only way you can write fine, but then you're going to have to spend some time editing to break up your pro's and your sentence is, and I do have, so if you want to here, the example before we wrap up So I I used all the Advice and I will skip. If you need to know what it is, you'll have to zoom back in the PODCAST. So I'm not going to reread the first one. That's all he used is horrible, but at the exact same idea or rewritten to break it up a little bit, Rowan smelled Woodsmoke lingering under the dentistry canopy from the campfire for the night before.

Autumn (42m 1s):
But the birds had gone silent. He reined in his snorting horse putting the horses net because she pulled the ground. He whispered what's bothering you old girl. The horse kept an eye. Our ears pinned back to us. She sidled sideways or a warm wind brushed against the back of his neck. It held a hint of sulfur. Rowan would be rigid in the saddle, under his arm. His Mary Real reared. She bolded is tree is ignited to the right and the hidden dragon roared. So we went from nine Sentences to 10 or only one starts with heat and to, with the characters name. And I don't know about you, but I would much rather read the second one in the first one.

Autumn (42m 35s):
All right. It's a million times better, obviously. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah. Very good. I think there were some good takeaways here. Umm, despite our previous Episode on bad Writing Advice this was hopefully Writing Advice do you find it useful? Yeah. I don't know if it's coming Writing Advice so as long as we can claim that this is not common than the other. I think we we'll be good. Alright. I we'll go with that.

Jesper (43m 7s):
OK. So next Monday we plan to speak to you about a brand new way. You can think about your author website, but I'll leave it a bit cryptic for now.

Narrator (43m 19s):
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