Category: writer reminders
Adjectives
Nouns share people, places and things important to a story. Verbs show action. Together they form the foundation of any story. Now, think your adjectives. They are like the petals of a flower; they enhance the core of your story by describing the nouns. Too many will drag down the flow of words, make the story droop with their weight; too few will leave a story petal-less, lacking details that allow the reader to paint their own picture and “see” what and where and to whom events are happening. Striking a balance means you share the best descriptive words you...
Planning a Story
ONE WAY TO PLAN YOUR STORY There are lots of ways to plan a story but this one is an easy way to step into your ideas. Hope it works for you as well as it works for me.
A Writing Obstacle Course: Race to the End
Writing a story is a lot like running an obstacle course. It can’t be a straight line. To hold the attention and interest of readers it needs obstacles and problems to be dealt with along the way. Those problems need to build, creating an escalating reasons for a reader to finish the story/book. Recently I spoke with a person who read my novel,Tasman-An Innocent Convict’s Struggle for Freedom, in one sitting. She said she got so engaged that she couldn’t stop until she discovered Ean’s fate. Her comments had me floating for days. It verified that I’d created an obstacle...
Facts in Fiction
Grounding fiction with pertinent facts makes the story more beievable. To that end a writer needs to select facts that feel like they belong in the story. There must be a reason for their inclusion, a purpose that moves the story along. Examples: In the ballet trilogy (84 Ribbons, When the Music Stops: Dance On, and Letters to Follow: A Dancer’s Adventure) I used facts: real streets in real towns, real layouts of homes, real ballet music, and real scenery you’d see if you visited the places I had Marta and Lynne visited. I especially enjoyed my visits to The...
WOTS: a Great Northwest Writing Conference
2017 Write on the Sound: October 6, 7 & 8 Everything you need to know about the 2017 conference is now available on the website: www.writeonthesound.com Keynote: NYT Bestselling author Kristin Hannah in conversation with author Megan Chance A former-lawyer-turned writer, Kristin Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbusters, The Nightingale, Winter Garden, Night Road, and Firefly Lane. Friend, critique partner and author Megan Chance will lead a conversation with Kristin about the writer’s life and the writing process. Megan’s critically acclaimed, award-winning novels include A Drop of Ink, Bone River, The Spiritualist, and An Inconvenient Wife. Dates to Remember… Mid-June: the...
Slow Motion – A Writer’s Trick
Clive Matson got it right! In his book Let the Crazy Child Write: Finding Your Creative Writing Voice, he suggests that writers use slow action. When an important event occurs, slow the action down to freeze frame speed. That pulls readers closer allowing them to experience the physical tension with the character. Whatever the action looks like: a fall, a gun fight, or an ah-ha moment; it works. The next time you come across an action scene, see if the author has extended that scene through slowing down the time and movement. If it is a memorable scene, I’ll wager...
Impressions Notebook
Summer time, winter time, all year ’round. It’s always a great to write down your impressions as you experience them. It’s almost too simple, so give it a try! 1. Keep a small Impressions Notebook in your pocket and jot down what you see and feel at various moments in your day and across the year. 2. Record the weather: sky conditions and colors,the temp, the way you feel looking around you or what you feel when you step out into the weather. 3. Outside, touch objects to record their impressive temperature. A chair in the sun feels different from...