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Starting Your Scenes with a Bang!
Openings are a science unto themselves, be they openings for an entire book, for a chapter, or for a scene. One principle, however, is generally agreed upon: it is best to open with something...
View Article5 Ways to Strengthen Weak Writing
Every writer has to work on strengthening the construction of their sentences and paragraphs. No one’s writing is perfect, but with effort any writer can improve. There are always aspects to our...
View ArticleBackstory Tips and Tricks
You’ve spent hours, maybe months, developing a rich background for each of your characters and the world they inhabit. As the creator of your story, you are omniscient. You know why your characters...
View ArticleBalancing “Showing” with “Telling” in Fiction
It’s the golden rule of fiction: show, don’t tell. But it’s easier said than done. Show too much, and you’ll bore even yourself. Show the wrong details, or show ineffectively, and you may find that...
View ArticlePacing Tips for Fiction
Strong pacing is critical in a fictional story, but it’s one of the hardest elements to understand and master. That’s because there isn’t one “right” way to pace a story, nor is there one definable...
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The Narrative Significance of Place
Guest post by Mariia Kukkakorpi.Have you ever considered how places influence storytelling, shape the atmosphere, or evoke the reader’s emotions? A setting can reveal more about the characters than the...
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How to Turn Good Dialogue into Great Dialogue
We fiction writers want to write terrific dialogue. After all, dialogue is the “make or break” element in a story. Writing it well can mean the difference between a manuscript’s being published and...
View ArticleTips to Turn Sketchy Writing into Robust Prose
Writers are hounded with the admonition to “show, don’t tell,” which is not easily done well. Showing requires learning masterful technique that can make readers feel as though they are in the story,...
View ArticleWatch Out for Pesky Adverbs and “Weasel Words”
If you’ve been writing fiction for a while, you’ve probably heard editors or other writers insist that adverbs and overused words (and actions) weaken writing. That advice may be followed by the famous...
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