Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better.
A great paragraph from The Lake House by James Patterson:
There were bullets ringing out around us. We’d been spotted again. Oh my good God, or bad God, or some kind of God, we were in big trouble! Then we got a little break. Not much to cheer about, but it was something. The wind shifted. The smoke from the fire gave us some cover.
What we might see for an improved version:
Bullets were zinging around us.
We’ve been spotted again. Oh my good God . . . or bad God . . . or some kind of god . . . we’re in big trouble!
The wind shifted. The smoke from the fire gave us some cover. What a break. Not much to cheer about, but it was something.
Some logic for making improvements:
- Try not to begin a sentence with “there,” which is weak. Starting with a noun is stronger: Bullets were zinging around us.
- The internal dialogue in italics works best in its own paragraph, like what we would normally do with spoken dialogue in quotes.
- The point-of-view character wouldn’t have been thinking, We had been spotted again. That wording is an observer telling a story about something that happened earlier. In the immediate moment, the person would think, We’ve been spotted again.
- Past tense in internal dialogue destroys the perspective of present thought. Always use present tense, not “we were in big trouble,” but “we are in big trouble.”
- If we wanted to show a pause between three distinct thoughts about God, we should use an ellipsis (. . .), not a comma.
- Should we capitalize a bad God or some kind of God? Maybe not.
- “Then we got a little break” is telling something from an omniscient point of view, not the best approach for today’s audience. The point-of-view character in the moment of action can’t know it was a “little break” before it came. We fix that problem by moving the observation of the break to a position after the place where the break happened.
- How small is a little break, compared to just a break or a long break? The indefinite qualifiers can usually be left out, and in this case we definitely don’t need it. “Little” is redundant with “not much to cheer about.”
- In a deeper point of view, “then we got a break” becomes “what a break.”
