Next time you read a novel, see if a character "quirks an eyebrow" or shapes her mouth into an "O" to indicate surprise. Some people call these "received gestures," and they're a sort of shorthand to indicate emotion. Understandable as they are, they do get stale.How can you avoid them? Well, you could check out... Continue Reading →
Rescuing your story from cliche
This is an excerpt from 179 Ways to Save a Novel by Peter Selgin:As the moth is attracted to flame, less-than-vigilant writers are attracted to the bright light of intrinsically dramatic situations, where the drama is preassembled, ready to use—convenient.We’re drawn to clichés because they’re convenient. And convenience for writers—convenient plots, convenient characters, convenient coincidences,... Continue Reading →
6 ways to make your book a page-turner
Some great tips from author/editor Nancy Lamb. Here are the first three:1) Evoke Curiosity Begin your chapter by provoking the reader’s interest. Reveal a secret, generate a plot line, or create a mystery—making sure these elements have consequences further into the story. 2) Never End at Endings Avoid ending a plot line at the end... Continue Reading →
Rules for writing fiction
There's a huge list that I've been enjoying for the past several days, marveling at some good bits of wisdom and scratching my head at what seems like it's meant to be a joke.Here's Neil Gaiman with wisdom:The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed... Continue Reading →
How to lose readers and distance people
This helpful bit comes from Kiersten White's blog (her book, PARANORMALCY, is due out this September):I think we can learn a valuable lesson as writers (and as human beings) (okay, not really, but sometimes I like to pretend like there's really broad application so that my non-writer-readers won't click away) (or I like to distract... Continue Reading →
Nail Your Novel: a free ebook
Roz Morris, a novelist, ghostwriter and freelancer, has an e-book called Nail Your Novel. You can download it free here.
Pacific Coast Children’s Writers Workshop
Take part in a team-taught seminar for writers of character-driven MG and YA novels at the eighth annual Pacific Coast Children's Writers Workshop.It'll be held Aug 20-22 at the Pajaro Dunes private beachfront facilities near Santa Cruz, CA. There are spots for 30 savvy and/or published writers, "active observers," and teen readers and writers.Faculty includes... Continue Reading →
Character emotion makes the plot
Martha Alderson (a.k.a. The Plot Whisperer) has a post on how a character's emotional transformation drives the plot. Here's the beginning: Some writers excel at pithy banter. Others create dramatic action. The writers I most admire are the ones who in their own natural style convey a character's emotional personality in scene through active, non-verbal... Continue Reading →
Thinking about beginnings
When the topic of first pages (due March 20 for the conference) came up last night, I thought about this blog post by Kristin Nelson, which includes an action-packed beginning by Linnea Sinclair. Immediate scenes make for great openings. They can be hard to write if you don't know what your story is. Once you... Continue Reading →
100 things about a novel
Alexander Chee waxes poetic about the way novelists work. Here's the first few things:Sometimes music is needed.Sometimes silence.This is probably because a novel is a piece of music, like all written things, the language demanding you make a sound as you read it.Sometimes I have written them on subways, missing stops, like people do when... Continue Reading →