In my time on writing forums, blogs, and in just talking to people, one of the most common topics is feedback. Whether it’s people not being sure how to give feedback, how to ask for feedback, or what to do with feedback, it’s amazing how many issues come up. Even worse, quite a few of the other questions that I see are flawed because the author is asking for feedback at the wrong time or in the wrong way, which…
When you decide to write a story, you’ll almost always already have the main characters in mind. After all, you can’t have even the idea of a story without characters to fill it out. So it may seem strange to talk about choosing your characters. But, just like when you’re evaluating a scene, you have to be sure that each character is serving a purpose and driving the story forward. It’s one of the hardest evaluations to do when you’re…
Tuesday, we talked about your opening scene and what purpose it serves. It needs to introduce the main character, explain why that character is interesting, and lead into the plot. Today, we’ll focus in a little more and look at the first paragraph of the book. Some of these things may seem like they overlap with Tuesday’s post. They’re supposed to. For obvious reasons, what you’ve chosen for your first scene affects what you do in the first line. This…
Your opening scene is important, because that’s where you have to hook the reader. If they don’t care about your main character by the end of the first scene, they’re unlikely to finish your story, much less enjoy it. One book I recently started to read opened with a ten-page prologue set a hundred years after the actual story. I made it to page twelve. Another opened with the POV character talking to her sister over breakfast, with a paragraph…
For most of us, our enjoyment of writing grew out of our love of reading. Some wanted to continue a story that someone else had written, so they write fan fiction. Some people write because they enjoy the process of storytelling that they’ve seen in other books. Personally, I write because of the world building I enjoyed in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and all the authors that have followed in his footsteps.
Last week, we talked about the dangers of having a thesaurus around when you are writing. Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most common things a thesaurus will do: kill “said.”
Most professionals understand that animals don’t belong in workspaces. Even proper pets, like dogs or spiders, tend to be distracting and prevent work from getting done. In more extreme cases, cats can destroy countless hours of work just to amuse themselves.
As you may have guessed from the title, today we’re going to talk about different errors in punctuation. I know, it’s everyone’s favorite thing to read about on a Thursday morning. But punctuation is one of those little things that can screw up a good book, especially when it changes the meaning of the sentence. Knowing the rules for how these work will help you do better in your first draft, which means editing and proofreading will go much easier.
We wrapped up the series “You’ve Finished Your NaNo Novel, Now What?” last Thursday. Here’s a recap in case you missed any posts!
You’re almost done! You’ve put a lot of work into your novel, even after the thirty days of NaNo. It probably looks a lot different than the one you started with. You’ve added new scenes, changed plot points, fixed character development, and removed most of the awkward phrasing and dialogue.