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Readers Notice and They Care
Readers care about story details and they care about characters. Both last night and this afternoon I had conversations with readers upset about the way authors had portrayed a character. The first...
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Get Skilled
You’ll find a lot of articles at this blog that encourage the new writer. Writers come to writing for many reasons, and not all will have a background in writing, fiction, or literature. And while I...
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Hold Off on Polishing
The next article I had lined up focused on a grammar issue, but I was reading a thread in a Facebook writing group and wanted to weigh in on the subject. Contributors to the discussion were debating...
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When the Familiar is Too Familiar
The subject of this article falls under the broad category of fact-checking, but it covers a specific area that could use some extra attention when you’re working through a manuscript. Whether you’re a...
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Finish What You Start
This is the time of year we’re filled with excitement over new projects, new possibilities. We make resolutions and plans, determined that this is the year we’ll write that novel, that we’ll submit a...
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Showing and Telling Particulars
A writer and I were talking about showing and telling this week, about the differences between the two ways of presenting information, details, and action. And so I thought I should write up my...
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Saving the Day, Solving the Problem
After readers have followed your protagonist through the adventure and events you devised for your characters, after readers have laughed at, wept over, feared for, maybe even dreamed about your main...
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“And” in Action
The subject of this article comes courtesy of a conversation (e-mail variety) with a writer. We’re going to look at the word and and its use as a coordinating conjunction joining two actions performed...
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Know Your Character’s Language
Today’s topic comes courtesy of a book I recently read. The author is well known, the publisher a long-established publishing house, and yet still there are distracting miscalculations in word choice...
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The Perspective From Inside a Character
A writer and I were recently exploring ways to write from a character’s point of view, as if the writer were on the inside of the character looking out through the character’s eyes and experiencing...
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The Story Question is Vital
In my interactions with writers, the topic of the story question has come up at least half a dozen times in the last few months. It’s a topic I haven’t addressed here at the blog, so this is obviously...
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Anticipation and Uncertainty—Lessons From TV Sports
I don’t know if you’re caught up in Olympic fever or if sports leave you cold, but I admit to loving the Olympics. Winter or Summer Games, the competition grabs my interest. I’d like to use the current...
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Deep POV and Narrative Distance—Part 2
In part 1 of this series, we looked at the link between deep POV and narrative distance. In this article we’re going to focus on tips and techniques for working with deep POV. Remember that deep POV...
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Entertain the Reader
I spent an hour or so earlier today working on an article about the purposes of fiction, and while I might get around to posting that at a later time, what I really want to focus on is just one of the...
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Casting Your Scenes
Have you ever been asked where you get the ideas for your stories? What a question—of course you have. And you probably get story ideas from everywhere—from the antics of family and friends, from a...
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Managing Days and Time—Lessons From TV
In honor of the arrival of the sixth season of Game of Thrones, I wanted to address a problem issue with the TV show. The creators and producers do a marvelous job—outstanding, actually—with most of...
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Rewriting and Editing—So Many Possibilities
When you’re faced with a sentence, phrase, or paragraph that needs work or a bit of tweaking, does it sometimes seem as if rewriting is an impossible task? You know the phrasing isn’t quite right, but...
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Remember Your Readers (Excerpt #5)—Launch Week Festivities*
An excerpt from The Magic of Fiction from Chapter 43, “Keep the Reader in Mind” ______________________ We have to examine story components, but we also need to evaluate novels as a united whole. Some...
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Writing Questions Answered—Launch Week Festivities*
Celebrating The Magic of Fiction ______________________ Do you have questions about the fiction elements, about grammar or punctuation? About writing in general or writing a novel in particular?...
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A Writer’s Style (Excerpt #4)—Launch Week Festivities*
An excerpt from The Magic of Fiction from Chapter 16, “Refining Style” ______________________ All writers have a style. That style may not be clear until a writer has written several manuscripts or...
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