Wordherders: What Works, What Doesn’t Work

For our August 2020 discussion, the Wordherders brought examples from their reading – and their writing – to share with others as examples of what works for them in writing and what doesn’t. Rosann Ferris: Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage Murders, and the Birth of the FBI by David Gran Jess Goodrich has been reading political essays. What didn’t work for her is when authors of essays meant to persuade the… Read More

Gestures, Expressions, and Movement Beats by Category

From Allen Johnson: I have been reading best sellers (Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Dean Koontz) and, all the while, keeping an eye on dialogue and motion/gesture beats. I’ve organized them into categories (e.g., anger, anguish, nervousness, joy, walking, sitting, etc.). My purpose has not been to plagiarize but to give myself some ideas for creating my own beats. I thought the list (now 16 pages) might be helpful for other writers in… Read More

Exposition

“Show, don’t tell.” Narration is telling; exposition is showing. In trying to learn more about how to use exposition well in writing, I’ve found two perspectives particularly helpful. First, Jennifer Paros, in an essay, “The Ol’ ‘Show Don’t Tell’ Thing” counsels that authors should allow their reader to “enter a world, instead of just hearing about it.” Granted, this is just a different way to say “show, don’t tell” but in a… Read More

Scene Craft by Naomi Hughes

This thread was posted by Naomi Hughes (@NaomiHughesYA) on twitter.  You should follow her! This thread is also available from the Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) on twitter. Today, let’s chat about the most common problems I see at the next stage of editing: scene craft! Scene craft is something that you can definitely build into your manuscript from draft 1. It’s all about keeping the reader riveted at the scene-by-scene level, even if nothing… Read More

Legendary, by Donald Maass

From: http://writerunboxed.com/2018/01/03/legendary/#more-51527 Recently, a young agent on my staff requested a really good manuscript.  She wanted to represent it.  Naturally, so did a number of other sharp-eyed agents and thus my young colleague found herself in a so-called beauty contest, a familiar competitive event in our profession. To back up my young colleague’s bid, I arranged a phone call with the equally young, appallingly talented young writer of the manuscript in question.  I told… Read More

25 Things A Great Character Needs, by Chuck Wendig

From: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/01/13/25-things-a-great-character-needs See the original post for the more colorful, uncensored version. 1. A Personality This seems rather obvious, sure — in a way it’s like saying, “What makes a really good tree is that it has an essential treeness” — but just the same, it bears mentioning. Because some characters read like cardboard. They’re like white crayon on white paper. Sure, the characters run around and they do **** and say **** but… Read More

Novel characters: 15 top character creation tips

From: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/novel-characters-15-tips Great novel characters share common features: Distinct, authentic voices, character development, clear goals and motivations, strengths and flaws. Here are 15 of our top character creation tips gathered from some of the best writing blogs and websites: 1: Give your novel characters clear motivations that drive your story Writing characters who spring to life off the page is partly about giving characters clear motivations. Over at Terrible Minds, Chuck Wendig sums this up eloquently:… Read More

The 9 Types Of Unreliable Narrator, by Amanda Patterson

From: https://writerswrite.co.za/9-types-of-unreliable-narrator I was stunned by the success of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It was obvious to me that the author was employing the unreliable narrator technique in the story. This came as a shock to many readers and viewers, which is odd when everyone tells you that there are at least two sides to every story. There is a long history of unreliable narrators in fiction. There is an even longer list in… Read More

Truth and lies in fiction—how to write an unreliable narrator, by Arlene Prunkl

From: http://penultimateword.com/book-marketing/how-to-write-unreliable-narrator I’m excited about this blog post. While most of my articles are on common topics that you can find information about all around the Internet, the subject of unreliable narrators doesn’t get a lot of ink. And that’s probably because relatively few fiction writers know about the literary device of unreliable narration, and if they do, they haven’t any notion of how to create it or use it to best effect. Recently,… Read More

8 Tips to Writing Unreliable Narrators, by Deb Caletti

From: http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/8-tips-to-writing-unreliable-narrators The unreliable narrator … Ah, don’t you love that unsettling, page-turning, blockbuster-making literary device? An unreliable narrator makes for the bad boy of novels—ensuring a delicious but uneasy read, an on-the-edge wondering of what might happen next. Usually, we feel we’re in good hands with whatever main characters we’re spending time with between the covers. We can count on them, we think, to tell us the truth. But then comes a… Read More