One of the most evocative, memorable, and poetic writing techniques is the simile—and its cousin the metaphor. A simile describes something by comparing it to something else: The sky was blue, like a robin’s egg. A metaphor describes something by saying it is something else: The sky was the blue of a robin’s egg. With […]
December 29, 2010 by 27 Comments DescriptionHow to Bring Adjectives to Life
As a writer, you’re always being told you’re not supposed to pile on the adjectives to describe something. But how else can you share with readers the nuanced vision you see in your own mind’s eye? David Guterson’s lyrical study of life and death in East of the Mountains offers a surprisingly simple and effective […]
December 22, 2010 by 18 Comments DescriptionWhy Writers Must Resist the Urge to Explain
Because it’s so important readers get what you’re trying to say in your stories, it can be tempting to explain things point blank at every juncture. Avoiding confusion is vital. However, when you fail to master subtlety, you not only rob your stories of added power and depth, you also risk frustrating readers with patronizing […]
November 28, 2010 by 8 Comments DescriptionThe Pros and Cons of Writing Description
“Nothing bores me faster than description.” You’ve probably heard readers make that comment. Perhaps you’ve even made it yourself. In the face of the modern impatience with pages (or even paragraphs) of descriptive narrative, it’s easy for writers to overreact and decide to avoid description altogether. After all, you can’t afford to do anything that […]
August 4, 2010 by 15 Comments DescriptionHow to Use Details to Enhance Readers’ Suspension of Disbelief
Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is plenty strange, especially in this era of vampires, dragons, time travel, and who knows what else! Because readers are accustomed to far-out premises that stretch reality all out of shape, most won’t blink an eye at a story that features any number of unbelievable phenomena. But […]
May 23, 2010 by 34 Comments DescriptionGenerality Is the Death of the Novel
Fiction is about specifics. In real life, you may get away with being ridiculously vague: “Gimme that thingamajig over there.” But the only reason this works is because the specifics are already staring both you and your listeners in the face. In fiction, however, you must hit the specifics and hit them hard. Years ago, […]
May 5, 2010 by 30 Comments DescriptionOne Example of Why Less Is More When Writing Description
In trying to make scenes come to life for readers, you may be tempted to begin writing description after tantalizing description—all the vivid metaphors and similes you can think of. If one vibrant image is good, then two should definitely double your money, right? Ironically, just the opposite is true. As fellow fantasy author Jane Lebak once […]
January 27, 2010 by 73 Comments Description2 Important Tricks for Making Your Prose Sing
Words are the building blocks of our craft, and yet the way words are put together is a facets of storytelling writers often overlook in our mad dash to perfect plot, character, dialogue, and POV. Learning From the Masters of Prose: Frances Mayes But when a book as luscious as Frances Mayes’s Bella Tuscany falls into your […]
October 4, 2009 by 16 Comments DescriptionGood Writers Are So Lazy, They Make Readers Do All the Work!
This is a guest post by Jason Black. Read any half-dozen writing blogs, and they’ll be full of advice on how to craft dramatic scenes, how to write realistic dialogue, how to create vivid settings, and all that jazz. Add in the need for a compelling hook, character arcs, rising tension and stakes, and it […]
July 5, 2009 by 22 Comments DescriptionDo You Have the Two Necessary Skills for Using Details to Bring Your Fiction to Life?
Most of the time when we think of great stories, we think of just that: stories. We don’t often think about the bits and pieces that make up the composite whole, the 206 different bones beneath the polished flesh, the mosaic chips that form the complete picture. But it’s these bits, bones, and chips that decide whether a story […]
