Grammarly’s Good But Not for Fiction
There are plenty of beneficial writers’ tools, but a weekend of editing has taught me something: Grammarly’s good but not for fiction.
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Writing
Posts on the craft of writing
Character Arcs Rise and Fall
Part of the editing process is considering how character arcs rise and fall in the course of the novel. Movement, growth and change are key.
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Plugging a Plot Hole
Writing across a series, rearranging the jigsaw pieces often reveals some missing; that means plugging a plot hole. Or several.
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The Professional Working Draft
Never mind that I’m 65% through editing and still don’t know if the novel is any good: do I have a professional working draft?
A professional working draft comes at the end of one or more rounds of internal edits; no copy editing, line editing or proof reading. We’re still in the early stages. In short, does the manuscript work?
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Three Scales of Character
Some of the takeaways from Brandon Sanderson’s 2020 lectures include his three scales of character.
Sanderson’s three scales of character are:
- Likability
- Proactivity
- Competence
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Sanderson on Character
Another gem from the BYU online writers’ course features author and lecturer Brandon Sanderson on character. In this lecture, Sanderson outlines his theory of character in fiction. It’s a remarkably simple and effective formula, from a best-selling genre writer.
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Do Readability Scores work?
Some seventy years on, the Flesch readability test is used by marketers, policy writers and bloggers; but do readability scores work?
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Stock Images and Stock Covers
Judging books by their covers gets even trickier with stock images and stock covers. Browse certain genres in the Amazon store and you’ll find the same images cropping up on cover after cover. Like The Woman with the Birdcage.
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No New Stories Only New Twists
Time and again we’re told there are no new stories only new twists. So what is an aspiring author to do?
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Story Structure: the First Quarter Debate
Discovered a new aspect of writing craft this week while looking at story structure: the First Quarter Debate powering our story opening.
Freelance editor and BookTuber (there’s a compound word with so much right and wrong with it) Ellen Brock posts on writing craft and this week summarised the essential components of the difficult first quarter.
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