I was discussing with an editor friend of mine the other day some of the infuriating comments I had received from publishers about a rejected manuscript. I have had a couple in a row now saying more or less the same thingāgreat story, great writing and weād love to take it if only you could change a few things. The few things being essentially take out all the imagery, introduce snappy smart-ass dialogue instead of description, cut the number of important characters who the reader will get to know down to two, and get rid of all the passive voice. In other words, rewrite in such a way that my story resembles, in everything but irrelevant details, a hundred other stories that have made money for their publishers.
Keep the language and the concepts simple, they advise, because no reader likes having to think about the meaning of an image. Donāt describe because itās boring, instead have the characters chatter incessantly about the snow, the rain, the scenery, the car crash etc. Get rid of all adverbs and all dialogue tags except for āsaidā.
Not only is this the tyranny of the mediocre, itās also plain ignorant. Adverbs are perfectly good parts of speech. Like everything, they can be over-used. But they are not intrinsically evil. If I want to indicate that a character whispered a comment, I will say, āshe whispered.ā I will not say, āshe said.ā Or āshe said in a whisper.ā There is a perfectly good verb that condenses āto say in a whisperā into one word: whisper.
Banning the passive voice is another directive that gets on my nerves as it is often through a misunderstanding of what the passive voice is. I was told, as an example, to change āGeorge was reading the bookā (passive) to āGeorge read the bookā (active). George was reading is past continuous not passive. It is no less active than any straight past tense and it doesnāt mean the same thing. The passive would be āThe book was read by George.ā
Take āGeorge was reading the book when the doorbell rang.ā Compare it with āGeorge read the book when the doorbell rang.ā Doesnāt make sense.
These blanket instructions are not intended to help make a particular manuscript better, just to turn all manuscripts into the same, homogenised product. The same is true of dialogue. It has to be clever, smart, snappy. Regardless of the situation. Iāve just been reading a novel that typifies what editors insist upon. It starts with a guy getting knocked down by a van. Because an opening has to be action-packed, right? Instead of the guyās unspoken impressions as the van hits him, the reader is given an internal monologue of āhumorousā quips and observations. To my mind this is misplaced and unrealistic, and itās not even funny. Itās life reduced to clichĆ©s, situations reduced to tropes, and characters flattened to cardboard cut-outs.
I am coming more and more round to the opinion that publishers, editors, agents are looking for a product not a book, a brand not an author. I try to step back from what I write, try to use the advice Iāve been given to make the story better. I can always see how to make it different, itās the ābetterā that is so subjective. Does ābetterā have to mean easier to read, as in taking what was written for 16-18 year olds with an adult reading age and making it suitable for ten year olds who have to be cajoled away from their comic books with promises of similar action and wise cracks? If thatās making it better, then Iām afraid I donāt share the same fundamental ideas about what makes writing good. In fact, to me it looks suspiciously like an encouragement to dumb it down.