This week’s video offers a super-easy rule of thumb for always finding the best and most evocative details for your story descriptions. Video Transcript: In some ways, story descriptions are kind of the bane of the writing life. Descriptions of character and setting are integral to bringing to life any story. But there’s also a […]
September 10, 2014 by 93 Comments DescriptionHow to Write a Gut-Wrenching Tragic Scene–Thanks to One Surprising Detail!
This week’s video contains a confession from me, slightly counter-intuitive advice on how to write a tragic scene, and an absolutely spot-on example from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Video Transcript: I have to start off this video with a confession. Within the last month or so, I stumbled across a fantastic quote of writing advice, […]
July 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment Theme5 Important Ways to Use Symbolism in Your Story
Today, I’m guest posting over on Storyfix, with the post “5 Important Ways to Use Symbolism in Your Story.” Here’s an excerpt: Symbolism can sometimes be a tough concept for authors to get their heads around. How do we come up with the right symbols in the first place? What should they be symbolic of? And how do […]
June 21, 2013 by 14 Comments Structuring Your NovelWriting Scenes You Haven’t Seen
Compelling fiction is driven by scene. We can feel omnipotent when writing a fictional scene, wielding complete control over every detail, every action, every sensory experience. But there are limits to that power; what we include must seem real to the readers. Creating a sense of the “real” is a particular challenge for writers of historical fiction, who must stay […]
April 3, 2013 by 23 Comments Narrative5 Signs Your Book Is Too Long
I love long books. Those big fat hardbacks that are too heavy to even hang onto and you just have to let ’em flop open in your lap? Yum. There is something so delicious about being immersed in an amazing story and knowing you have three hundred pages still to go before you reach the […]
February 6, 2013 by 30 Comments Story SettingsHow Much Setting Description Is Right for Your Story?
Sometimes certain writing directions can make setting description sound like a bad thing, to the point that writers don’t dare include more than a skimpy paragraph of setting description lest readers cry foul and claim the book is boring. However, the far side of this slippery slope is also a pretty boring place. Setting is […]
August 19, 2012 by 16 Comments DescriptionAdd Muscle to Your Fiction With Unity and Contrast
Our eyes see the world in shades of light and dark. Without one or the other, details fade into invisibility. The painting technique known as chiaroscuro (which as Lemony Snicket would say, is a big, big word meaning, quite literally, “light-dark”) makes full use of the contrast between light and dark to pull details into […]
June 20, 2012 by 11 Comments DescriptionHow to Improve Your Story With Specificity
Today, I want to ask you a question. What is the single greatest contributing factor in bringing your prose to life? Since you’ve probably already read the title to this post, you probably already know the answer is specificity. So specificity—what exactly am I talking about, and why is it so great? What I’m talking […]
February 3, 2012 by 25 Comments Researching Your NovelWhat Non-Fiction Authors Can Teach Novelists
Do you aspire to write a novel as breathtaking as Huckleberry Finn? Mark Twain cheated. He brought to his fiction a skill set he developed under his given name, Samuel Clemens, as a journalist. Twain the novelist knew that a riveting opening, skillful incorporation of dialogue, and compelling details are all tools he could mine […]
August 24, 2011 by 14 Comments NarrativeHow to Create Subtext by Letting Your Readers Fill in the Blanks
As I discussed in a recent post (“Why Your Reader Is Your Co-Writer”), the best authors understand how to sketch their stories with just enough detail to let readers see the scene, while still leaving room for readers to fill in the blanks. The trick for how to create subtext with just the right balance […]
