By Lisa Hall-Wilson
Ever had an editor or beta reader flag the moving or disembodied body parts in your fiction?
Eyes roaming/flying/darting…
Fingers flying…
Hand creeping…
Feet following…
Arms folding…
Heart pounding/racing…
Now, I get it. It feels like editors are just splitting hairs and camping out on semantics because the reader will understand what you meant. Let’s look at 4 reasons why we want to avoid these autonomous body parts in fiction – and because I’m always about deep POV geekery, we’ll look at this topic from that angle.
First, let’s keep in mind that you won’t be sitting next to the reader as they’re turning pages and stumbling over phrases. You won’t be there to explain things, or shrug, “You know what I meant.” If you’re justifying these phrases by saying “they’ll figure it out,” you’re not doing your job. Your job is to articulate how the character feels and (in deep POV) create an immersive emotional experience for the reader.
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Author Don Massenzio 