What is an Adverb? Part 1
An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Some examples of adverbs: adjective form – adverb form happy – happily clear – clearly close – closely dear…
story writing
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Clichés – Enemy or Friend?
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?”…
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Overwriting With Too Many Unnecessary and Unneeded Superfluous Words
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….
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Building Suspense and Creating Tension Part 4
Building Suspense and Tension – Part Four Dialogue should, as a rule, always have a purpose and contain at least an element of tension. Avoid using dialogue for small talk or pleasantries –…
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Building Suspense And Creating Tension Part 2
Building Suspense and Tension – Part Two Uncertainty: Building suspense means creating uncertainty in the reader, and compelling them to want to read ahead to see what happens next – while in the…
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Building Suspense And Creating Tension Part 1
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…
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Conflict – Who Needs It? You!
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…
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How to Write Believable Characters
The most important part of any story is the characters. Indeed, the characters are the story. If you don’t have believable characters, then you don’t have a story – no matter how good…
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Story Pacing – Urgency – Hooking Readers
The First Fifty – Crucial – Pages of Your Book The first fifty pages of your book are crucial for setting the hook in your readers. Something has to happen. Something exciting, or…
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What is the Best Point of View to Use in Fiction?
Benefits and Drawbacks of Each POV As a beginning writer who chose to write my first book in first-person narrative, I discovered the drawbacks of such an approach the hard way. Halfway through…
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World Building – Information Dumps in Your Story
Are You Overwhelming Your Readers? Have you ever run across a prologue like this: (usually in sci-fi books) Captain Briggs took the helm and began shouting orders. “Ensign, optimize the traspositional filtration valves…
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Sentence Fragments – Stylistic Choice?
Should I use sentence fragments in my novel? Is it bad writing or style? Sentence fragments. Who cares? You? Me? Anyone? Depends. Writing nonfiction? Probably wouldn’t. Work, that is. Writing fiction? Could be….
