He Said, She Said: Writing Good Dialogue Writing dialogue is important to fiction, of course, because our characters must have conversations, must say things so that they come across as realistic. But dialogue isn’t exactly like real speech. It needs to be more focused and nuanced, not to mention just plain fun to read. Let’s start with the mechanics, and then we’ll move on to the more complex techniques for writing great...
Read More
Evocation: Bringing Your Reader into the Story Why do we love reading stories? There are certainly many answers to that question. But mine would be that we love reading stories because they transport us into another character’s life, and for however long we are reading, we are someone and somewhere else. Good writing does that. It evokes in us as readers the story world and brings it to life. Simple Definition of...
Read More
Plotting Like a Pro The Importance of Plot Plotting. If there was one thing I could say gives writers the most trouble, it would be plotting. Did your stomach knot up a little there? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Whether you’re an outliner or a by-the-seat-of-your-pants-er, at some point every writer of fiction must address the structure of their novel. After all, it is the scaffolding by which everything else in your story...
Read More
Distance and Depth and the Stuff In-Between Point of View in Fiction Which point of view to use in fiction is one of the fundamental questions writers are faced with when beginning a story. Will it be an intimate and subjective point of view or distant and objective? Will it be told by someone in the story or by a narrator removed from the story? And how deep into the character’s mind should the perspective go? John Gardener,...
Read More
Those Pesky Commas The comma. It’s a small, seemingly inconsequential little piece of punctuation, but oh, how important it is. According to the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition, “The comma, aside from its technical uses in mathematical, bibliographical, and other contexts, indicates the smallest break in sentence structure.” But contrary to popular belief, which often sees its use as a bit arbitrary, there are some hard...
Read More
Recent Comments