You’ve probably heard that, to keep your reader’s attention, you need to keep raising the stakes. This is sound advice, but it’s also pretty vague. What does it mean to keep raising the stakes? Should you start with dismally low stakes so you have somewhere to go? If you start with life-and-death stakes, do you have to end with save-the-world stakes?
Read MoreConflict is essential to good storytelling. However, not all conflict will have the same impact on a story. It isn’t enough to just throw progressively more challenging obstacles at your characters. Meaningful conflict is conflict that resonates with your readers.
Read MoreLine editing is the step in the publishing process that focuses on a line-by-line examination of the text of a novel. As you can imagine, very little escapes such a close read of a manuscript. I shared the following post on publishingcrawl.com after my editor and I had recently gone through the line editing process with Ivory and Bone. Here’s what I learned from my first experience with the line editing process.
Read MoreWhy is it important to create active characters? The writing world likes to talk a lot about Strong Female Characters. These conversations have gotten me thinking about strong characters in general, regardless of gender, age, or abilities. What attributes define a strong character? After much thought, I’ve concluded that, in general, a strong character is one who is Active.
Read MoreIf you are at the stage where you are looking for an idea you can develop into a novel, I have a post on How to Generate Ideas. But what does a writer do once they have a kernel of an idea? How does a one-sentence seed grow into an 80,000 word novel? If you have a concept for a novel—a premise or a “hook”—how do you start to expand that and take the first steps to writing your book?
Read MoreWhat are language clichés, and why should writers avoid them? There are two kinds of clichés that pop up in writing—language clichés (e.g. dead as a doornail) and character clichés (e.g. the mean cheerleader.) This post will focus on clichéd language, and show how purging your writing of tired expressions can infuse it with clarity and power.
Read MoreWhen is it okay to break with writing conventions? Should you always follow established norms? Some “rules of writing” are so well established we hardly notice them, until a writer upends our expectations by taking a risk and breaking a rule we’ve taken for granted. Then, as readers, we all decide whether we feel it “worked” or not.
Read MoreWhere do great ideas come from? What idea generation techniques work best? This can be a difficult question to answer, since usually, an idea for a novel seems to come out of nowhere. One day you're driving in your car or washing dishes and an idea starts to glow in your mind like the sun coming up, or maybe it glares down on you all at once, as if dark clouds were suddenly blown away and there it is – hot and bright and obvious.
Read MoreOne technique I use to help me create realistic characters with distinct personalities is to write letters from my characters. It helps me discover the character’s voice, as well as the intimate details about their inner life—their goals, motivations, and fears—that can be hard to discover with character profiles and worksheets alone.
Read MoreGetting published is generally a challenging, frustrating road. It can break your heart, as most writers need to wade through lots of rejection before they reach their first publishing success. Many people quit before they get there. I wrote this post to help writers who might be tempted to quit.
Read MoreInfo-dump. Just the name of this writing mistake telegraphs that it’s something to be avoided. For purposes of this post, “info-dump” refers to a section of narration inserted into a story that explains important backstory essential to understanding the current action. Here’s an example:
Read MoreI'm fascinated by lists of "recommended reading" - not only do such lists help us discover great books, but they also reveal quite a bit about the person who created the list. (For example, someone over at LibraryThing.com has cataloged the contents of Marilyn Monroe's personal library. Reading through the list reveals a lot about the private interests of such a public person.)
Read MoreCreating realistic characters that are multi-dimensional involves knowing as much about them as possible. That includes knowing what they lie about, who they lie to, and why. Knowing these details about your characters will help give them authentic, well-rounded personalities.
Read MoreAn idea for a novel is the first building block to writing a book. But while a great idea is an important component to a great novel, a great idea alone won’t guarantee a successful book. So what does it take to shepherd that great idea through to a successfully executed story?
Read MoreWord choice matters. As writers, our meaning either shines through or gets lost in the fog, depending on the words we choose. That’s why careful, precise word choice will improve your prose and improve the clarity of your writing.
Read MoreWe all want to create vibrant, lively, realistic characters with personality that leaps from the page. We want our characters well-rounded and interesting. We want our characters to each have their own “voice.” All of that is important, yet none of it guarantees our readers will care about our characters.
Read MoreWriting a book with a large ensemble cast of characters gives a writer many opportunities to create memorable, unique, and varied characters readers will love. But if the characters are not sufficiently distinct, the result can be confusing for the reader and distract from an otherwise good story.
Read MoreDramatic irony, one of three forms of literary irony, occurs when the reader or viewer has information that the characters do not have. It can be used to great effect in fiction, plays, and movies to create tension, suspense, empathy, or even humor.
Read MoreOver the years, I've read my share of writing guides, most of which have been helpful in one way or another. None of them have made me laugh out loud, however, until I read On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.
Read MoreWhen it comes to writing prose, it’s easy to overlook the value of the sound of the words we choose. Issues of word meaning, usage, and sentence structure tend to dominate our attention when editing a draft. But in the pursuit of excellent prose, it can be useful to borrow a few techniques from poetry. Poets understand that sound enriches writing and connects with the reader on a level all its own.
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