Ready to take your writing to the next level? e-mail me
As writers, we are managers who must control the pace or rate of revelation to readers. Foreshadowing and withholding are two techniques for your toolbox. Writing Tip for Today: What are Withholding and Foreshadowing and how can we use them effectively? Rate of Revelation As your readers’ manager, you control how much information readers obtain […]
Writing is rewriting, the saying goes. And self-editing is a must-have skill for good rewriting. Writing Tip for Today: What are some strategies for developing your self-editing skills? Read, Plan, Draft Self-editing skills take time and practice. Sure, some seem to have inborn talent for storytelling. The rest of us can learn to craft better […]
When you’re writing a scene, do you understand its purpose? Writing Tip for Today: Let’s explore purpose in scene writing. The Why of Scene Your scene’s purpose is the reason you write the scene. Purpose tells readers why they’re following your character thus far. Unfortunately, writers often miss this important element when they try to […]
In nonfiction writing, it’s important to balance the different elements of style. Here’s what I mean. Writing Tip for Today: Let’s talk about the different nonfiction elements and how to balance them: The Five Elements Any story—fiction or nonfiction—relies on five different ways we can tell a story: Action, Dialogue, Thought, Description (narration) and Exposition. […]
The winter sun peeked out from behind clouds and a bitter wind reminded me that spring wasn’t here yet in Oregon. That day, though, I was feeling good. My middle son was in between what I call meth binges—a few days when his “real” personality returns, and he stops being paranoid, aggravated and mean-spirited. Instead, […]
In scene writing, effective writers develop and keep a certain scenic rhythm. That is, the scenes have a balanced mixture of action, dialogue, interior thought and narrative. Writing Tip for Today: Let’s discuss ways to keep scenic rhythm feeling natural and unforced: Know Your Scenes Mixing the combination of action, dialogue, interior thought and narrative […]
Last post we talked about writing effective dialogue in general. Today let’s take it a bit further. Writing Tip for Today: Here are some more tips for writing effective dialogue: Too Much or Not Enough New writers often lean heavily to one side or the other—either they allow too much narrative to dampen scenes or […]
For many, writing dialogue is as natural as brushing teeth. Others struggle to produce authentic dialogue. Writing Tip for Today: Here are a few tips for improving dialogue skills: Point to Tension I’ve published many posts about basic dialogue mechanics: Use “said” as attribution or tag, avoid encyclopedic or longwinded dialogue, use first names sparingly, […]
Most experts agree that using newsletters to grow your platform is the best and most cost-effective way to attract new readers. Writing Tip for Today: Let’s talk about newsletter basics: Define the Where A newsletter is different than a blog in that a newsletter comes directly to a reader’s email inbox. As many marketers observe, […]
Seems as if every so often, I run into the same dead end in my writing: the dreaded writer’s platform. Have a helping of the latest ways to grow a readership. Writing Tip for Today: What are some best practices for building your writer’s platform? Fiction v. Nonfiction In ways a nonfiction platform may seem […]