Each of these Deep Editing Analyses is a quick learning opportunity for writers who strive to master editing for psychological power.
I feature an author each month for Deep Editing Analyses for Mary Buckham’s newsletter. If you are interested in subscribing to the monthly e-newsletter, go to www.marybuckham.com, and click on Newsletter.
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| 1. Author | 5. Example(s) |
| 2. Title | 6. Genre, sub-genre |
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Enjoy the Deep Editing Analyses below!
LIFELINES, a women’s medical thriller with romantic elements by C.J. Lyons, is loaded with fresh emotive writing that imprints characters in a reader’s heart. Lyons, an ER physician turned writer, excels at writing craft and story-building. LIFELINES is garnering strong reviews across the country. Romantic Times gave LIFELINES 4 ½ Stars and selected it as a TOP PICK. Let’s see why.
On page 1, Dr. Lydia Fiore faces challenges of her first day on the job in a new city. Here’s how CJ Lyons shows Lydia questioning her decision.
EXAMPLE:
Her stomach did a tumble and roll, like being sucker-punched by a wave off the coast at Malibu, dragged under by your own stupidity.
ANALYSIS:
CJ Lyons described a fresh visceral response, followed by a simile, anchored with a power internalization. A power internalization that’s backloaded with one word that captures how Lydia is feeling: stupid.
The second passage is from Chapter 3. The Chief of Emergency Services wants to speak to Lydia. She knows he’s not pleased and she knows why.
EXAMPLE:
“Meet me in my office when you’re done.” He sounded tired and the look on his face definitely wasn’t the same friendly grin which had greeted her at the start of her shift.
Of course, that was before she let the Chief of Surgery’s son die.
Her breath caught, couldn't make it all the way down her lungs. It was as if a malignant mass pressed against her heart and chest, threatening to choke her. And it kept on growing, twisting her gut, an unbearable pressure.
ANALYSIS
In the first line, CJ Lyons shows news-of-a-difference with nonverbals, having Lydia notice his face is no longer friendly. The stand-alone line about letting the other chief’s son die is understated. Part of its power is that the sentence starts out casual and ends with a psychological punch: Lydia is responsible for someone’s death.
The last paragraph is empowered. It’s packed with eight Emotional Hits. Building emotion with visceral responses sets the hook in the reader and creates a psychologically powered read.
Poignant. Poetic. Prolific. A New York Times Bestseller, Angela Hunt has published 18 contemporary books, 18 historicals, 9 youth books, 10 children’s books, 9 nonfiction books, as well as a slew of other series and anthologies.
Angela Hunt has earned her spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. She’s earned multiple awards and honors, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times Book Club. In her not-so-free time this year, she’s also earned her doctorate.
The examples below are from three of her contemporary books. THE NOTE premiered as a Hallmark holiday movie in December, 2007.
Three examples from THE NOTE:
SET UP – Male POV character just agreed to meet a woman at her apartment.
He had a dinner with Mavis and her theatre group scheduled for tonight, but he could blow it off. Mavis wouldn’t be the only one present without a husband.
Ah, Angela Hunt backloaded with the most important word, husband. As intended, that last word hits the reader with a punch.
“They’re all in there waiting for you,” she said, flashing an I’m-glad-I’m-not-you smile.
I’ve seen that I’m-glad-I’m-not-you smile, I’ve flashed an I’m-glad-I’m-not-you smile too. But I’ve never seen one in print.
If you’ve taken my on-line classes, or heard me present, you know I emphasize writing fresh. If Angela had written it as a weak smile, a wan smile, or a half-smile, it wouldn’t have been as interesting. By writing fresh she gave the reader more information, and an uplift.
The muscles of her throat moved in a convulsive swallow. “Thanks, Mandy.”
She tried to keep her heart calm and still.
Wow! A fresh visceral response. So much stronger than: She swallowed. Writing fresh adds power.
Two examples from THE NOVELIST:
I smile when the rest of the class laughs, but Morley’s words have raised a welt on my heart.
Angela Hunt showed incongruent nonverbal responses in a fresh way. I’ve never seen ‘raised a welt on my heart.’ Excellent.
The challenge hangs in midair, bold and blatant, while overhead a faulty fluorescent bulb flickers and buzzes like a wasp.
Notice the alliteration: bold, blatant, bulb, buzzes, and faulty, fluorescent flickers
Notice the onomatopoeia: buzzes
Notice the negatively-connoted simile – the challenge is like a wasp.
Notice the cadence. Read it out loud. Now, pull out “bold and blatant’ and read it out loud. The way Angela Hunt wrote it, every word counts. Both the content and cadence increase the power.
I don’t want another heartache, I don’t want to know that I have another relative. I don’t want to be bound to more tragedy even by heartstrings. I don’t need more grief in my life, and I don’t need a sister.
Angela powered up a turning point with anaphora, one of my favorite rhetorical devices. I’m betting you all notice that the paragraph is backloaded for psychological impact.
Angela Hunt’s writing impresses me. I’m looking forward to meeting her, and chatting with her about her writing, when I present at ACFW’s national conference in Minneapolis in September.
Stephen White, the NYT bestselling author of 16 Alan Gregory novels, writes like he’s an expert on understanding nonverbal communication and emotion. He is. He’s a psychologist.
There’s no better place to find stellar examples of empowering emotion and nonverbal communication than from a psychologist who writes about a psychologist. His protagonist, Alan Gregory, is as intuitive about interpreting nonverbals as the author who created him.
Enjoy these examples from Stephen White’s recent release, DEAD TIME: Cliché Twist, Epistrophe, Simile, Paralanguage Simile, Eye Message, and a Visceral Response.
P. 141 Cliché Twist: Where sexual indiscretion was concerned, Sam felt he was the blackest pot on the earth, and he was not about to disparage anyone else’s charred kettle.
P. 93 Epistrophe: “Because you’ll see something I won’t see. You’ll see something her sister won’t see. You may well see something the cop won’t see.”
P. 113 Simile: Bad habits with my ex-wife kept surfacing like a beach ball I was trying to hold underwater.
P. 156 Paralanguage Simile: “Listen,” he said in a voice that cut off the small talk the way a sharp knife takes the top off a banana. “I need a favor. A big . . .favor.”
P. 186 Eyes: Hector’s eyes locked on mine and restrained me like a pair of handcuffs.
P. 342 Visceral Response: Another chill skittered across the wide flesh on my back. It felt like a terrified cluster of semi-frozen bugs running for their lives.
Fresh writing! I’ll dig deeper into the visceral example. Stephen White could have written:
A chill skittered across my back.
We’ve read that line, or variations, hundreds of times. Stephen wrote his line fresh. He amplified, specified, threw in a terrified cluster of semi-frozen bugs – and had fun writing that line. I’m betting the readers have fun reading it too.
In DEAD TIME, Stephen White adds power with a variety of rhetorical devices including anaphora, epistrophe, similes, metaphors and litotes. Those are five of the twenty-five rhetorical devices I cover in Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More. That on-line course is offered in May through Writer University.
Stephen White’s books are stellar reads. His placement on the New York Times bestseller list, well-deserved.
MADAME MIRABOU’S SCHOOL OF LOVE, by Barbara Samuel
Barbara Samuel captivates readers by weaving irresistible stories about ordinary women in an extraordinary style. A multiple RITA award-winning author, she has published more than 25 books -- historical and contemporary romances, and women's fiction. Barbara Samuel’s mastery of writing craft shines.
Here are several examples of fresh visceral emotion from Madame Mirabou’s School of Love:
Page 248: My chest constricted so much I could barely breathe. Was I having an asthma attack or something? I took hitching little breaths and told myself to relax. I paced out to the hallway again, and the hitch in my throat eased.
NOTE: Barbara showed the reader the POV character’s recovery. Authors frequently build visceral emotion (e. g., pounding hearts, tight chests, difficulty breathing) creating a psychologically empowered read. Few authors include the character recovering from their adrenalized state.
Several lines later: “Hi Mom, are you busy?” To my horror, my voice broke on the last two syllables, and the wretched tears were back.
NOTE: Smart to share the paralanguage cue from the POV character. Smarter to add her horror and the tears. Instead of one line carrying one paralanguage cue, one line carried three Emotional Hits.
Page 249: Something broke, an egg full of terror. The contents spilled out harmlessly.
NOTE: In two short sentences, Barbara Samuel conveyed that this character’s fear dissipated, implying a recovery. She gets extra credit for writing it in a fresh way.
Page 268: Butterflies leapt, soared, fluttered. Anticipation? Fear?
NOTE: Using those few words Barbara keeps the pace going strong. She nailed the visceral response and raised questions about what the character is feeling.
Barbara Samuel imbues her characters with a depth of emotion so real, the reader forgets they’re fictional. Powerful visceral cues. Powerful internalizations. Powerful stories.
Robert Crais took a risk. In the mid-eighties, he quit his oh-so-comfy job as a writer for TV shows -- including Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, and Miami Vice -- to write novels. He gambled on his writing talent. He won.
His first book (1987), THE MONKEY’S RAINCOAT, kicked-off his acclaimed Elvis Cole / Joe Pike series. Fifteen books later, Robert Crais’s books have garnered fistfuls of nominations and awards, including the Macavity, Shamus, Anthony, Edgar, and the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, and his books consistently hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list The movie, HOSTAGE, released in 2005, was based on his second stand-alone. It starred Bruce Willis.
Here are some Deep Editing examples from his 2008, 2007, and 2006 releases:
CHASING DARKNESS, 2008: Jonna, waiting in an interview room, knows the police have new evidence that implicate her in committing a murder.
P 251: Jonna leaned back when we entered, and laced her fingers. She seemed completely at ease—not relaxed the way you’re relaxed when you’re just hanging around, but comfortable like an experienced athlete.
Deep Editing Analysis: Crais amplified Jonna’s body language with those opening lines for Chapter 43. Crais shows the reader Jonna looks at ease, yet compares her to an experienced athlete. The subtext sends the message: like an experienced athlete is psychologically prepared for a competition, Joanna is psychologically prepared for a battle.
THE WATCHMAN, 2007: This girl just learned that someone she trusted with her life, has malicious intent. She’s in danger.
P. 250: All she felt was the strange out-of-body sensation with the air humming on her skin. Her vision blurred, so she knew she was crying, but she didn’t gasp or sob and her nose didn’t clog: it was as if someone else was crying, and she was watching it from the inside.
Deep Editing Analysis: Crais made the girl’s first response to danger be a visceral response. Visceral first, what Dwight Swain (and I) recommend in Motivation Reaction Units. Crais gets credit for fresh writing. He described the disassociative experience--air humming on skin, oblivious to crying, watching from the inside—in a way that gave the reader a psychological lift. No clichés. No overused phrases. No tried and trite writing.
THE TWO MINUTE RULE, 2006: The next piece always grabs me. I’m there. I’m right there feeling Holman’s pain.
The set-up: Holman was just released from prison. The only thought that’s given him a reason to live for the last 20 years, was to reconcile with his son, who is now, ironically, a cop. The excerpt below is from Chapter One. Wally runs the half-way house. Wally informs Holman that the night before his release, his son was murdered.
P. 15 –
“He was killed last night. I’m sorry, man. I’m really, really sorry.”
Holman heard the words: he saw the pain in Wally’s eyes and felt the concern in Wally’s touch, but Wally and the room and the world left Holman behind like one car pulling away from another on a flat desert highway, Holman hitting the brakes, Wally hitting the gas, Holman watching the world race away.
Deep Editing Analysis: I recommend that you read that piece out loud. Several times. Analyze it. Study the cadence. If Crais had left out the phrase—on a flat desert highway—the cadence would suffer. Notice the use of asyndeton in the last three phrases. No conjunctions. Asyndeton is one of the 25 rhetorical devices I teach in Deep Editing.
Crais laced that piece with several gifts for the reader. Fresh writing. Multiple senses. Strong cadence. Rhetorical devices. Strong similes to convey the out-of-reality experience. He loaded it with psychological power.
If you want to read suspense novels that are super-charged with stellar writing and plot twists, read Robert Crais. You’ll be super-charged too.
Harlan Coben, a New York Times Bestselling author, adds psychological power to his writing by using a variety of rhetorical devices. In his May, 2008 release, HOLD TIGHT, he treats the reader to a SUPER EMPOWERED passage laced with personification. See how he imbues the house with human qualities in this example from page 47.
The house was dead.
That's how Betsy Hill would describe it. Dead. It wasn't merely quiet or still. The house was hollow, gone, deceased--its heart had stopped beating, the blood had stopped flowing, the innards had begun to decay.
Dead. Dead as a doornail, whatever the hell that meant.
Dead as her son, Spencer.
Betsy wanted to move out of this dead house, anywhere really. She did not want to stay in this rotting corpse. Ron, her husband, thought it was too soon. He was probably right. But Betsy hated it here now. She floated through the house as if she, not Spencer, were the ghost.
Harlan Coben powered that passage with several rhetorical devices:
Amplification (e.g., hollow, gone, deceased, rotting corpse)
Anaphora (Dead. Dead as a doornail . . . Dead as her son, Spencer)
Personification (house was hollow, gone deceased – its heart stopped beating, blood stopped flowing, innards decaying)
Simile (as if she – were the ghost).
He also deepened the read with cadence (sentence length, structure, fragments), the power of three (twice in the 5th sentence), scene-themed words (dead, rotting corpse, floated) and backloading (ending three paragraphs with power words—dead, decay, ghost).
Harlan Coben uses rhetorical devices and fresh psychologically anchored writing to tell the reader 15 times that Betsy Miller despised living in the dead house. The dead house that reminded her of her dead son.
Follow Harlan’s lead. When it’s an important message for the reader, get their attention with a Super Empowered passage loaded with rhetorical devices. Deep edit it for psychological power.
New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs uses multiple Emotional Hits of physically-based emotion to add power to her books. Here’s a passage from page 23 of THE WINTER LODGE. Look how she strengthens this panic attack.
Jenny felt the now-predictable pattern of the attack. There was the terrible tingling of her scalp, an army of invisible ants marching up her spine and over her head. Her chest tightened and her throat seemed to close. Despite the freezing temperatures, she broke out in a sweat. Then came the eerie pulsations of light, flickering in her peripheral vision.
We’ll analyze this according to what I call EMOTIONAL HITS. Each of the following gets one point: tingling scalp (1), ants up spine (2), ants over head (3), chest tight (4), throat seemed to close (5), sweating (6), pulsating light (7), flickering in peripheral vision (8).
I gave points to each detail that I felt added emotive power.
Susan Wiggs included eight Emotional Hits to add credibility to this character’s panic attack. Stack up your Emotional Hits with physically-based emotion and build a passage with psychological power.
Debut author Toni McGee Causey wrote a fresh romp of a mystery that lives up to its title.
BOBBIE FAYE’S VERY (very, very, very) BAD DAY, 2007, is the first release of her three-book contract with St. Martin’s. If you’re looking for a humor fix, you’ll find it in Bobbi Faye.
Check out these examples and see how Toni McGee Causey has fun sharing fresh writing, nonverbal communication, and emotion in a way that’s consistent with her humorous down-home voice.
Who the hell would expect her to be nice anyway? Lori-freaking-Ann that’s who. Her pill-popping, wine-swigging lush of a little sister whose plastered-on Grace Kelly smile made her look efficient and serene, even when she wobbled into a wall and fell on her ass.
Read it out loud. The cadence is perfect. Plus, it carries a punch—and gives the reader a heck of an image of Lori Ann, and Bobbi Faye’s attitude about her sister.
Here’s another sisterly line. This one includes physical representation of emotion, or PINK, in my EDITS System.
That’s when she felt it: that fire in the pit of her stomach, that knot of big-sister determination in her chest that had nearly gotten her killed more times than she could count.
Here’s the last excerpt, a facial expression with a power interpretation.
He’d never seen such a desperate expression in her eyes, not even the time she’d asked him to let Lori Ann go. There was a wave of absolute primal fear vibrating off her, and he knew she was calculating her shot odds as soon as she’d heard the SWAT running toward her.
Toni McGee Causey treats the reader to a dynamite read. BOBBIE FAYE’S VERY (very, very, very) BAD DAY is a mystery that will give your funky funny bone a workout.
If you want to learn how to write fresh nonverbal communication, read THE SLEEPING DOLL by Jeffery Deaver. This book features Special Agent Kathryn Dance, a kinesics specialist. She’s an expert in interpreting body language.
Here are two excerpts from page 335. The kinesics specialist is talking to a reluctant witness, a teenage girl.
“Tare, something troubling happened on the drive, didn’t it.?”
“Troubling? No. Really. I swear.”
A triple play there: two denial flag expressions, along with answering a question with a question. Now the girl was flushed and her foot bobbed again, an obvious cluster of stress responses.
SEVERAL LINES LATER:
Finally she said, “Oh, I‘ve wanted to tell somebody. I just couldn’t. Not the counselors or friends, my aunt . . .” More sobbing. Collapsed chest, chin down, hands in her lap when not mopping her face. The textbook kinesic signs that Theresa Croyton had moved into the acceptance stage of emotional response. The terrible burden of what she’d been living with was finally going to come out. She was confessing.
WOW! Jeffery Deaver has his protagonist teach the reader about body language. Convenient. Compelling. Masterful.
Those of you who’ve taken my editing courses or heard me present full-day workshops know about EMOTIONAL HITS. Look how many Emotional Hits Deaver slips in that last paragraph. Sobbing. Chest. Chin. Hands/lap. Hands/mopping face. FIVE Emotional Hits, plus the dialogue, plus the internalizations. NOTE that he backloaded the paragraph with CONFESSING. :-)))
Treat yourself to a fabulous read loaded with classic Deaver plot twists. Treat yourself to learning more about interpreting body language than you knew existed.
Read Jeffery Deaver. Treat yourself.
If you know the TV series, Spenser: For Hire, or the TV movies featuring Spenser, you know of one of the most prolific and successful writers in the world, Robert B. Parker. Parker, winner of the Edgar, and a Grand Master for Lifetime Achievement Award (Mystery Writers of America), is one of the leanest writers you’ll read. Lean, as in fewer words, more white space. He’s so lean, he has to make every word pull quadruple its weight.
Most readers don’t know Robert B. Parker earned a Ph. D. in English. Parker often quips that the Ph. D. didn’t teach him how to write, but it “ . . . probably informed my imagination and maybe gave my writing what Chandler said Hammett lacked, ‘the sound of music from beyond the hill.’”
Robert B. Parker’s writing tickles the wit and gives the psychologist in every reader a chance to play analyst. Here’s an excerpt from SPARE CHANGE, the 2007 release in his Sunny Randall series.
This excerpt (page 111) could have been pulled from a romance novel. Sunny’s ex-husband just informed her he left his second wife -- implying he wanted Sunny back.
. I was conscious that my breathing had become shallow and quick. My throat felt tight. Around me the restaurant continued in real time. People were dining and drinking and chatting and being pleased and being annoyed. Time had slowed at my table. Everything had receded a little. We were alone in a slightly different time and place. Living at a different speed. I swallowed some wine so that my voice would work.
ANALYSIS: Note that the VISCERAL RESPONSE SET is first. Just like Dwight Swain recommends with his Motivational Reaction Units in TECHNIQUES OF A SELLING WRITER. Just like I recommend in my two editing courses. :-)))
How many times does Parker SHOW the reader that this moment in Sunny’s life is critical? He gives the reader TWO VISCERALLY-ANCHORED EMOTIONAL RESPONSES: breathing changes and a tight throat. He uses FIVE SENTENCES to contrast restaurant time to Sunny’s emotional time.
Remember – Parker is MR. LEAN. Yet – he AMPLIFIES his point five times. He wraps up the paragraph with an emotionally-anchored nonverbal communication, a vocal cue, and he shows it through action, not telling. He doesn’t say her mouth was so dry it was hard to speak. He SHOWS her taking a drink so she could speak.
Add the 2 visceral responses, the 5 sentences about the time distortion, and the vocal cue, and we have EIGHT EMOTIONAL HITS . . . from the leanest writer around.
I hope my DEEP EDITING graduates recognized his use of the rhetorical device, POLYSYNDETON. Here’s the line: “People were dining and drinking and chatting and being pleased and being annoyed.” His use of MULTIPLE CONJUNCTIONS (polysyndeton) is lulling and a powerful juxtaposition of setting and emotions.
Bestselling author James Scott Bell loaded TRY DYING with fresh emotion, fresh nonverbal communication, and fresh writing. His dialogue is crisp and lean. He uses what I call Dialogue Runs to create a fast-paced read. Here’s a sample of the psychological power found in TRY DYING.
The protagonist has been knocked out and he comes to, not knowing where he is. Chapter 23 opens with these lines:
A rusty saw was cutting my brain in half. I was groaning. And moving.
Or being moved.
From a faraway place somebody said Okay?
Darkness. I was on my back. In a car.
SEVERAL LINES LATER, HE’S TALKING TO THE DRIVER:
Possibilities started to form like crystals on frozen glass, patterned but not making immediate sense. But I was sure it couldn’t be good.
“Let me out,” I said.
“Hey man, you’re hurt. You gotta--”
“Drop me.”
“Listen, you don’t want to be dropped. Not out here.”
I made myself sit up. It was like pushing a laundry bag with a stick. I gripped my head, trying to keep the halves in place.
ANALYSIS: What makes that passage a quick read, a strong read? Succinct dialogue. Natural sounding dialogue. Short, punchy sentences. Sentence fragments. Only one attribution (said) in this interchange. Lots of white space.
James Scott Bell sprinkled power internalizations in the dialogue run. Effective. And –he doesn’t take the easy route (cliché alert) and have the POV character say how he’s feeling. He shows us – then gives us a fresh simile (possibilities like crystals).
Fresh writing? You bet. He took the brain-cut–in-half piece and carried it forward by having the protagonist grip his head trying to keep the halves in place. Well done.
Every page of TRY DYING shows writers how to write well. James Scott Bell is a master of writing craft. He wrote PLOT AND STRUCTURE, a how-to-book for writers that I recommend. Read his books, analyze them. You’ll learn how to add more power to your writing.
Sue Monk Kidd’s first novel, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, was spotlighted on the New York Times bestseller list, sold close to 5 million copies, and is now considered a modern classic. Adapted into a movie, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, will be released October 17, 2008, starring Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, and Alicia Keys.
Sue Monk Kidd’s second novel, THE MERMAID CHAIR, hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list soon after publication and stayed on the list for nine months. THE MERMAID CHAIR won the QUILL AWARD for General Fiction and was produced as a television movie.
Knowing her first two books were adapted for movies, you’d be correct in guessing that Sue Monk Kidd tells a heck-of-a-story. A story that lives in your heart for years.
But how did this writer capture such a huge readership with her first book – that it skyrocketed to #1 on the NYT bestseller list and stayed on that list for over two years?
You know the answer. Stellar writing.
It takes both powerful story-telling and powerful writing craft to create the fuel for novels to skyrocket. :-)))
My copy of THE MERMAID CHAIR has over a hundred sticky tabs, each identifying a passage that showcases Sue Monk Kidd’s talent. The passage below shows the main character, Jessie, visiting her eccentric mother, whom she hadn’t seen for over a year.
THE MERMAID CHAIR, from pages 63 and 64:
I heard the beginnings of a laugh down in her throat, a rare melting sound I hadn’t heard in so long and for some reason it knocked my little wall of anger flat.
Sliding over so that our shoulders touched, I laid my hand on top of hers, the one still coiled around the spoon, and I thought maybe she would jerk it away, but she didn’t. I felt the tiny stick bones in her hand, the soft lattice of veins. “I’m sorry. For everything,” I said. “I really am.”
She turned and looked at me, and I saw that her eyes were brimming, reflecting like mirrors. She was the daughter, and I was the mother. We had reversed the natural order of things, and I couldn’t fix it, couldn’t reverse it. The thought was like a stab.
I said, “Tell me. Okay? Tell me why you did this to yourself.”
She said, “Joe—your father,” and then her jaw slumped down as if his name bore too much weight for her mouth.
Paragraph 1-- The laugh: Fresh writing; Used the laugh as a STIMULUS and provided the Response (it took away her anger)
Paragraph 2-- Showed Jessie using two forms of touch to connect with and comfort her mother, shoulders and hands; Specificity and fresh writing—stick bones in hand, soft lattice veins.
Paragraph 3-- Showed mother’s tears in fresh way; Power Internalizations: mother/daughter role reversal. Took it deeper by adding a viscerally-based simile.
Paragraph 4-- Natural sounding dialogue. No vocal cues. The dialogue is strong on its own. It’s short. Added WHITE SPACE to page. Picked up pace.
Paragraph 5-- Natural sounding dialogue. Fresh facial expression, jaw slumped down; Fresh interpretation of nonverbal by POV character, name too heavy for her mouth
Sue Monk Kidd. Read her books. Analyze her books. Learn from her books. And apply it to your writing. Your books may skyrocket too.