Help! Robotic Prose

Is the not-up-to-your-standards dialog in the turning-point scene? In any case, as you say, you don't have to fix it now. I mean, if it's bugging you, then by all means fix it now. If it's nagging badly enough that you can't move forward, then work on it now.

I find that when there's something that just isn't working, the best solution is to scrap that bit and start over. You might be better off just giving it a fresh take than fiddling.

Usually, it's something small in the scene that isn't "clicking" and that seems to throw me off and lead to clunky prose/dialog. Are you sure you know what everyone's attitude is? What they're trying to accomplish? What they think the conversation is about? What they think of the other people in the scene? I guess what I'm saying is, is there some slightly deeper reason that the dialog isn't landing properly?

Listen, this happens ALL. THE. TIME. Do NOT sweat it. This is the scared part of your brain that does not want you to finish your novel, trying to stop you. As far as I know it happened to Hemingway too. At least I know it happened to famous people--I've got a specific example but since my brain is turning up both Mark Twain & Stephen King as being the guy involved, I can't quote it reliably! But seriously, I do know that I've read that excellent authors frequently hated their own work at certain stages, and big scenes close to the end are prime places for that to happen. There's a distance necessary for enjoying a piece of writing that is completely destroyed in a writer's brain at some point (because you've just been in the darn thing too much.)

The real question is, does the structure work? Is your planned turning point still the right turning point? If not, maybe that caused this problem. If so? WRITE ON. Yes, maybe in the end you'll need a full "take it from the top" rewrite on that scene, keeping its structure and writing new prose--you'll be able to do that at that stage. It's extraordinary how much easier it is to write good prose when the plot is nailed down. You'll find that power in yourself when you write the last word and look back over the book. I did.

Don't let this stop you.

I love to write dialog because prose, especially where I have to describe a scene, makes me grind my teeth. All I can do is go over it again and again and again.

And sometimes we just have a bad day and everything sucks big ones.

And yah, like SwallowFeather just said, everything comes easier once the plot is nailed down.

SwallowFeather said:

It's extraordinary how much easier it is to write good prose when the plot is nailed down.

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I'll second this. Also, my characters don't tend to find their voice until after the first draft.

I want to second what angeliz2k said. When a scene isn't working, you can spend days trying to fix it, but sometimes the easiest solution is to put it aside and simply rewrite the scene. The second time around you will have a much better idea of what you want to happen so it usually flows a lot better and is easier to write. You can then go back to the old one and borrow some of the stronger sentences.

Working on the 28th draft and rewriting the opener again.

You're not alone.

Try reading it out loud, and act it out (not literally, but emotionally). Or imagine the beginning of the scene in your head and do a sort of living room improv session. I do this a lot, luckily my animals lack the opposable thumbs or motivation to have me committed.

Maryn said:

Usually when I hear someone complain of their writing being robotic, they are using the same sentence structure over and over. Each sentence by itself is fine, but cumulatively, they don't work as a group.

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This, exactly. To which can be added, sentences all of similar length. English is extremely flexible in the ways you can construct a sentence. Make use of that flexibility.

Also, if you are writing fiction, don't worry about things like sentence fragments. All kinds of very fine writers use them, when appropriate. They are just one more tool.

caw

I have the same problem with my novel. At that point I leave it alone for a few days or a week and go back to where it starts sounding roboty. I usually catch myself that way with fresh eyes.

Steer clear of any Hemmingway-type programs/software or comparisons if you can, he was a very brief and succinct writer and can murder pose into robotic-ness if you try to emulate him too much!

Where it's a first draft I wouldn't worry about it too much. First drafts are always terrible. The first draft of the first novel I ever finished was...terrible. I was proud as hell because it took like 2 years to finish it, but when I was rereading it I realized that I hated all of it. I went through about 56,000 words of complete and utter garbage and managed to salvage about 3 pages out of it before starting completely over. First drafts are literally the worst, just be patient and eventually it'll get better. In my experience, you'll never feel like it's the best it could be, but you have to start somewhere

Philip Roth said that sometimes he writes for months on end, even a year, until he finally produces a sentence that's "alive" to him. And he throws out everything before that, and starts building the book from these sentences. ...Not a method I'd emulate But at least this shows the issue does indeed exist even on the higher levels of the field, and that everyone invents their own ways of fixing it.

I, personally, being super lazy, would simply invent a way to make the robotic prose plausable through some sort of robot/android/alien/psycho narrator.

Speaking of psychos--some might say Brett Easton Elis made mind-numbing robotic prose his literary trademark and it more than worked for him.

talktidy said:

Alright, so I know I'm on my first draft, and I know bad prose can be polished in later drafts, but I've struck a patch where my sentences don't just plod and sound robotic, they're shite.

<<snip>>

Honestly, in retrospect, I think I just need to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading.

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This post is two months old and it's still one my faves for the year. Is there *anyone* here who hasn't felt that this year? We should sticky it.

Usually robotic pose means you are paying too much attention to writing rules and sacrificing voice and style. Sure, rules are there for a reason but writers (especially if they are new) tend to believe the rules are set in stone. No. Rules can be broken in writing. I understand where you are coming from because when I started I paid so much attention to rules that sometimes my words lacked meaning.

talktidy said:

It's utterly disheartening, especially as I have hit one of my big target turning point scenes, which I have had in mind for ages. I'm not expecting to turn out Hemingway quality, but my current stuff is making my progress stall and leading me to fiddle.

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It is not like I am an expert in writing, but I am somewhat familiar with the idea of darlings.

My advice is to open a new document. Actually, five. Now, take that scene that you had formulated in your mind from so long ago and write it five different ways. To juggle stuff loose in your thoughts. You can pick the five prompts, but if you don't want to do that part I will suggest:

Turn the scene upside down (instead of a win, it is a loss, 'opposite day,' etc)
Tell it from the other point of view
Tell it from omniscient perspective
Pull it apart and BLOW IT UP and put everything important elsewhere in your WIP
Normal editing--for flow, brevity, punch, action, etc.

It might be a good exercise to find something that will fix the scene. You know the scene isn't where you want, you know something is missing, but you don't know what. So walk around in it, and look at it in new ways. I bet you'll find a solution.

I'd just like to add to the topic, that the most robotic prose that I've read in quite a while was that of Dan Brown's latest book.
And yet...

I find that in this initial draft, I'm telling rather than showing. You may just be trying to get all the "facts" of your story out, as if you were reporting a real story to the news.

I actually don't think that's such a bad thing. What I plan on doing - and what you may want to do - is to go back afterward from the beginning and show rather than telling (quite so much). Getting inside the story, IOW.

But it's GOOD to have the facts down. Even if you don't use them all in your second and subsequent drafts, YOU know why things are happening, and exactly how, because you have "robotically" listed them all. That's now in the back of your mind as you start fleshing things out.

JMHO.