The concept of show don’t tell is huge, so this is a tiny piece of it. A great craft book that includes a section on show don’t tell is Jeff Gerke‘s The Art & Craft of Writing Fiction. The entire book is an awesome craft book, but his section on showing is very helpful. I’ll [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on August 23rd, 2010 | No Comments »
Before you call your work complete, here is a short list to consider for your work to be tighter. Make sure your nouns and verbs are strong Can you take the “s” off the word? In a list, make the words go from short to long (words or phrases) “the <noun> of” = can you [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on July 29th, 2010 | No Comments »
For starters, you are going to the conference, right? I went to my first ACFW conference in 2009, but had been to two other writer’s conferences before that, so I had an inkling of what to expect. Multiply that times ten and you have the wonderful experience I call my first ACFW conference. Shall we [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on July 15th, 2010 | 5 Comments »
So you’ve brainstormed your novel and are ready to plot it – congratulations! Make sure that you’ve read many books in your genre, books that would compare with yours when you are ready to write your proposal. When you read these books, pay attention to how many points of view (POV) there are in those [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on July 6th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Now that you’ve chosen which POV (Point of View) to use for your novel, you need to plot out what will happen during the course of your novel. Karen Wiesner’s First Draft in 30 days discusses how many storylines to have in a full length novel. She recommends 5 to 9. It’s a great book [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on June 16th, 2010 | No Comments »
There is no recipe to writing a novel. There are many do’s and don’ts. The thing to remember about writing rules is that you need to learn those rules so that when you break a rule you are fully aware of it. Whose POV (point of view) do you use for a novel? Whoever has [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on June 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »
If you need help writing a scene, see my scene construction post. Now that you have the scene written, let’s tighten it! For each scene, you must make sure you anchor the reader by answering the five W’s, as Susan May Warren calls them. Who are the players? (which characters are in the scene?) What [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on May 19th, 2010 | No Comments »
Every scene must have: a description (what’s going to happen in the scene) a goal for the POV character the conflict that happens in the scene that prevents the character from achieving their goal kick it up a notch. After the conflict, give the character a disaster so they can’t achieve their goal a scene [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on May 12th, 2010 | No Comments »
In a fiction manuscript, weasel words are defined as words that suck the life out of the words next to them. I have a lengthy list of weasel words. Should they ALL be removed? No. Simply be aware! These words are usually superfluous: that just a little, a bit really nearly, almost quite rather kind [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on April 26th, 2010 | 5 Comments »
This is so personal, but I’ll share. Everyone ends up with a different kind of first draft. So this may make no sense to some! In my first draft, I start out with a couple of sentences, increase those sentences to a solid outline including dialogue. I then change the outline to actual narrative. My [...]
Filed under: Writing Tip on April 7th, 2010 | No Comments »
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