Writers, do you have a high-action starting scene that just isn’t drawing the reader in? What can you do about that? You need to set your scene to draw readers into the POV of the main character and give us an emotional connection to him. Without that, it’s hard to care about what’s going on. […]
Get into Your Character’s Head
Hooking the reader–it’s the author’s goal from the first word to the last. This is why one of the best compliments a reader can give an author is, “I couldn’t put it down.” But how do you accomplish this goal? How do you keep the readers flipping through hundreds of pages? Much is taught about hooking readers […]
Point of view: how deep?
Editors these days will typically steer a writer to use “deep point-of-view,” or deep POV. It’s a writing device where the reader learns only what the current POV character sees, feels, or thinks — until the next scene, when the POV character may be someone else. If there are one or two POV characters, the […]
Showing, not telling, character emotions
Some writers seem to have no trouble conveying the emotions of their characters. But it’s hard to do. We’re tempted to just out-and-out tell our reader what the character is feeling. “Fear strangled her.” “Love poured through her.” And so on. What’s wrong with that? Here’s what’s wrong: The reader feels held at a distance. […]
Revision Prompt – Author Intrusion
You’ve heard of writing prompts, now we have revision prompts! Each prompt will give you a specific writing issue to check for in your WIP, along with tips on how to fix each. Going through this process one issue at a time will not only help polish your current novel but will also teach you specific ways to […]
What’s wrong with writing from many points of view?
I know we’ve all read them, stories where the author is telling a story from the protagonist’s point of view. But in the next scene, the story moves into the mind a bystander to allow the reader to witness a disastrous event. Maybe this bystander gets wiped out. Next chapter, same thing. Protagonist is struggling […]
Filtering – A Subtle Form of Telling
What Is Filtering, Anyway? Filtering sifts the action of a story through the point-of-view character’s senses. It tells the readers the sense the character uses and is followed immediately by showing what the character experienced with that sense. Examples 1) He saw her step tiptoe around the lilac bush. 2) He felt his heart race. […]
Get Fewer Rejection Letters
With the beginning of the year, one of my goals has been to catch up on reading through submissions. As I’ve reviewed queries and submission over the last month, I’ve noticed a few issues that repeatedly come up which virtually always lead to a rejection letter. The following suggestions won’t necessarily lead to a contract, but they […]
Five ways to rivet your readers with a first-rate first chapter
Some books draw the reader right in, like a host at an open doorway, and quickly become very hard to put down. Others, not so much. I analyzed two books I find riveting. (While both books had romance stories embedded, neither of these books is in the typical romance genre.) What did the openings of […]