Whether you’re self-publishing your book, sending to an editor, or to a publishing company — ideally you want to send your ultimate best work — even if you’re having someone else edit it for you prior to publishing. I have done a lot of editing. Editors are people too — just like you. They’re not…
Engage Your Reader with Active Voice in Your Writing How to write and revise your novel manuscript with active voice – passive examples. While it has it’s uses – mostly in business writing – passive voice is considered weak and unappealing. Technically speaking, voice is determined by the property of a transitive verb which shows…
ADVERBS – PART THREE – THE DREADED “LY’S” When discussing adverbs in regards to writing fiction, the kind we’re usually talking about are the “ly” words, like clearly, dearly, and madly. Many high-brow critics complain that the use of adverbs like this is a lazy man’s (or woman’s) tool. I remember the first time I…
ADVERBS – PART TWO Some words can serve as both adjectives AND adverbs. 1) He swung hard with a right hook. Here, “hard” serves as an adverb which modifies the verb “swung”. 2) When he fell, his head hit the hard concrete. Here, “hard” is an adjective modifying the noun “concrete”. Occasionally, some adverb-adjective pairs…
An ADVERB is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Here’s some examples: adjective form adverb form 1) happy happily 2) clear clearly 3) close closely 4) dear dearly 5) perfect perfectly Of course, not all adverbs in in “ly” as the following list demonstrates: 1) here 6) now 11) then…
Every time I turn on the television or pick up a new book at the book store, I see yet another cliche or variation on a cliche, and I roll my eyes. “Again?” I say. “Geez! Is everybody these days so lacking in imagination, so devoid of creative talent, that they can’t come up with…
Building Suspense and Tension – Part One The most important thing you can do as a writer of fiction is make the reader want to turn the page. In fact, there is no other job more important to a writer. If the reader doesn’t care what happens next in your story, then you’ve failed as…
For those of you who didn’t notice, (and I hope most of you noticed), only one or two of those words were necessary to properly and clearly convey the topic of my discussion. In the two words, “Superfluous Words”, was contained the information in all the other seven words combined. The definition of superfluous is:…
HUMAN LONGING – THE MOST POWERFUL EMOTION To “long for” something – to feel a strong desire for an object or person. To ache for, hunger or lust for, to pine or yearn for someone or something just out of reach. There’s no deeper or more powerful emotion in literature, or in life, for that…
RADICAL PLOT REVERSALS – Another time-honored way of building suspense and creating tension is to create radical reversals for your characters. Reversals that jar the reader, create confusion, uncertainty, and doubt. SELF-INFLICTED REVERSALS – A reversal could be self-inflicted. For example, a recovering alcoholic with decades of sobriety could fall off the wagon. An ex-gang…
WITHHOLDING- Withholding is one of the simplest and most effective ways to create tension and build suspense. Remember Christmas as a child? Did you ever pick up a gift-wrapped box with your name on it days before Christmas and shake it in an effort to determine its contents? Though you were outwardly chafed, there was…
If you’re a writer, YOU do. Every story needs a conflict at the center of it. If plot is the fundamental building block of a story, then conflict is the fundamental building block of plot. No conflict, no plot. No plot, no story. Because if everyone in your story already has everything they need, if…