…not just for editing erotica.
I read a sentence that had a character holding one item, picking up another, and carrying something else all the while walking to a table. My first read through I couldn’t stop thinking about the one item dripping all over the hand to the floor. Then it dawned on me…how?
How did the character carry and hold everything. Nope no mention of balancing on forearms or trays. Just holding one thing, walking to pick something else up, and then carrying more to a table.
How many hands did the character have?
Then there’s the simple matter of whether the character was already standing…sitting. Carrying books or a coffee.
Facing or back turned to another? If they’re hugging, arms wrapped around each other, what extra hand is grabbing for the letter before the other sees it?
How many characters in the scene, still – don’t worry I’ll talk about those another time.
Placement of bodies means not leaving a character waving a hand in the air. Or talking with their hands and still rolling out cookie dough.
Think of this…Cook is preparing dinner moving between the stove in front of her and the sink behind. Turning to stir the soup, she continued to peel the apples for dessert.
HUH?
You can picture it even if it’s not written logically. Yes, there is a logic to creative fictional writing. Whether or not the reader will fill in what we mean, we need to write what we mean. We get into trouble when we start to combine movements which are not naturally part of each other.
Some movements we can leave to the readers’ imaginations.
…Taking the cookie tray from the oven and setting it on the hot pad, she transferred the cookies to the cooling rack…
This can be visualized and we know the steps involved. We’ll fill in the oven mitts, spatula and moving from oven to counter.
Go ahead and move when you’re writing your scene. Feel how your body moves. See what’s possible and what’s awkward. If you need to go get some dolls or an artist proportional model statue and move them into place.
Your story is a chessboard. Your characters the pieces to be moved as common sense dictates.
And they say writing is easy.