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. […]
What’s Your Character’s Motivation?
Why does your protagonist shy away from military men? Why does your hero think all beautiful women are snobs? Why is your antagonist determined to destroy the protagonist’s career? The answers to these questions are motivations for your characters’ behavior. It’s what drives them to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do—often against common sense—therefore, we […]
A Break Might Be Just What You Need
Writing is tough work. It takes learning and practice, and more learning and practice. Added to that, writing a book is a solitary activity, with few attaboys and many disappointments. It can be a recipe for writer’s block…or even just a stall. Yet we will run into plot issues. We will get frustrated with the rules. We […]
Revision Prompt – Sentence Spacing
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 […]
Revision Prompt – Too Many Characters at Once
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 […]
Revision Prompt – Changing Paragraphs
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 […]
Using Motivation-Reaction Units to Change Telling into Showing
Showing your story to your readers instead of telling it is a cardinal rule in fiction writing, yet much easier said than done. One very effective way to change telling into showing is a concept called motivation-reaction units (MRUs). What are MRUs? They were first introduced by Dwight V. Swain, in his book Techniques of the Selling […]
Writers, don’t write all the time. Read too.
Writers, don’t forget to read books. Especially books in your genre that your readers would enjoy. You’re not wasting time. You’re studying! In fact, you can locate a particularly gifted writer in your genre. Get out different-colored highlighters and mark the dialogue, the words conveying emotion, the description, and so on. Figure out your particular […]
The Dot-to-Dot Method of Plotting a Story
Writing is a very personal activity, and there are probably as many “methods” of writing as there are authors. What works for one person may not work for someone else. In some instances–such as the outliner vs. the seat-of-the-pants writer–methods can be complete opposites, yet they both get the job done for different sets of […]
Common New Author Writing Issues
When I first joined a critique group, fresh from finishing the draft of my first novel, I expected everyone else’s writing to be better than mine. Instead, I found that most of us were at about the same level, we just had different issues that challenged us. As I moved into freelance editing, I discovered that the […]