Fully Immersive Description
Nothing adds to a sense of place like fully immersive description. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a richly detailed description can transport the reader to a location as real as the one they are reading from. …
how-to
Foundations of a Dirty Draft
Working hard to complete Book Three, I’m building on the foundations of a Dirty Draft. But what exactly do I have to work with? And how do I get from ‘dirty’ to ‘clean?’
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Want versus Need
In trying to write better characters, it’s taken me a while to define want versus need. Writing coaches bang on about these all the time, but what do they mean and why are they important?
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A Strong Opening Chapter
A question or an obsession; how do I write a strong opening chapter? How do I hook the reader and keep them turning the page? I spend more time on opening chapters than anything else. Here’s my compilation of tips from writers and coaches from the last three years.
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The Revelation of Misbelief
Book One stalled for a while because I didn’t know how to handle the revelation of misbelief. In my defense, I didn’t acknowledge the place of misbelief in story telling.
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The Proactivity Scale
A key question in fiction: where does your protagonist sit on the proactivity scale? Do they pursue goals beyond the everyday? Survival or escape by themselves aren’t active goals. Something has to drive change and transformation, to become better by the end than they started at the beginning.
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Avoiding the Idiot Plot
Avoiding the Idiot Plot: in which characters behave like idiots. Logic and good sense go AWOL. Along with the reader’s patience.
Typically, Idiot Plots derive from non-communication and mis-communication amongst the characters. Often, in the Idiot Plot, one sentence could wrap up the entire thing before the end of Act One.
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Characters, Conflict and Consequences
Author and writing coach Joe Nassise brings us The Three C’s of Story: Characters, Conflict and Consequences.
His analysis is so simple, it approaches genius. Nassise lays out three elements:
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Five Components of Dialogue
Among the takeaways from Brandon Sanderson’s writing course are five components of dialogue. People talk, it’s a vital part of human communication. But writing good dialogue in fiction isn’t easy. Just watch ten minutes of Rings of Power.
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Introducing the Cumulative Sentence
It’s a rare item of writing craft that finds me introducing the cumulative sentence.
I had a “progressive” education, which meant I wasn’t taught grammar and punctuation or any of the glue that binds language together. I’ve had to discover it for myself. That goes for the cumulative sentence. Stick with me, it’s not that technical. You might even like it.
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