How many times have you been told your readers are smart? We’re warned repeatedly not to dumb down our writing, because chances are good that our readers are just as smart, if not smarter, than we are. If we treat them like dummies who can’t be trusted to understand complex language or ignoramuses who need […]
April 18, 2012 by 22 Comments CharactersIs Your Character Talking Too Much?
In real life, most people have a tendency to talk about what they’re going to do before they do it. We’re lying on the couch of an evening, talking to the cat purring on our stomachs, and we say something like, “I really should take that trash out, shouldn’t I?” We may even have to […]
April 11, 2012 by 25 Comments NarrativeHow to Show the Passage of Time in Your Novel
The passage of time is one thing all stories have in common. In some stories, such as “The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, maybe only a few minutes pass. In some novels, such as James Michener’s Centennial, decades pass. In some books, we may even see millennia go by. But no matter how much time […]
April 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment CharactersTaking Full Advantage of Your Character’s Traits
Your characters are a sum total of their traits. Maybe your heroine is beautiful, sassy, vulnerable, and intelligent. Maybe your hero is strong, witty, quirky, and claustrophobic. Piled together these traits can create complex and memorable characters. But sometimes authors fail to take full advantage of their characters’ traits and, in so doing, waste their […]
March 7, 2012 by 18 Comments NarrativeAre You Giving Readers the Tools to Understand Your Story?
One of the reasons story beginnings are so tricky is the sheer volume of information the author has to share with readers, just to make sure readers understand what’s going on. This grows all the more true when your story is presenting unusual or unexpected characters or settings. The trick is sharing the information without […]
January 8, 2012 by 43 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes: Too Much Explanation
Readers have needs. Authors are supposed to fulfill those needs. One of those needs is knowing what’s going on in a story, so naturally the author’s response is to explain what’s going on. So far, so good, right? Well, that depends. Explanations, in whatever form (narrative, dialogue, or action), are essential to any story. But […]
October 16, 2011 by 70 Comments Editing Your Novel5 Fun and Easy Ways to Lengthen Word Count
We see a lot of hype these days about books that are too long for agents or editors to consider. But what about books that are too short, in which we need to lengthen word count? In comparison to putting a too-long manuscript on a diet, fattening up a story often feels like trying to […]
June 5, 2011 by 132 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes: Overpowering First-Person Narrator
Stories told by a first-person narrator are increasingly popular these days. First-Person: “I went to school today.” Third-Person: “She went to school today.” First-person is often a narrative perspective that’s tricky to get right. The first-person narrator, more than any other type of narrator, is inclined to lapse into self-centered telling, in which the narrating […]
May 22, 2011 by 45 Comments NarrativeThe Kung Fu Panda Guide to Writing Action Scenes
You don’t have to love kung fuuuuuuu to enjoy a good action scene, but you do need to understand the basics of the action scenes scene if you’re going to blind readers from overexposure to your action awesomeness. Fight scenes, chase scenes, and other action extravaganzas appear in stories of every genre, so consider the […]
April 17, 2011 by 51 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes: Misused Speaker Tags and Action Beats
Don’t jeopardize your characters’ witty dialogue with punctuation and stylistic mistakes. Let’s a take a look at two means for indicating speakers and varying the rhythm of speech and narrative: the speaker tag and the action beat. How Not to Use Speaker Tags The speaker tag, which in its most basic form consists of the […]
