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Rewriting a novel is hard. Yet after you’ve spent so much time drafting and then cooling off your hot property, that story deserves to be fixed up. Writing Tip for Today: Here are a few ideas for rewriting your drafted novel. So What? Most first-time novelists rewrite by tinkering with sentences and word choices. Some […]
In the last few posts we’ve gone through “big picture” rewriting and the smaller stuff. Perhaps you’ve gone through these revisions multiple times (hurray for you!). One of the last rewrites I usually tackle is my opening: chapter one. Writing Tip for Today: Let’s talk about tips for shining up your novel’s opening in chapter […]
Journalists write lead sentences/paragraphs on a daily basis. They know it’s as crucial as a first introduction to pique the reader’s interest, to get them interested in reading more. What about book-length projects such as novels and memoir?Writing Tip for Today: How can you write a lead (opening) that not only dazzles the reader, makes […]
Many first novels jump into flashback in the opening chapter. The writer thinks readers will want to know as much about their character as they do. While we do need to know some things (setting, time and POV chief among them), readers are willing to forgo the background (what happened to this character before the […]
People often tell me I have a good narrative voice. I tend to write in First Person, and often, when I’m starting out a new book, I just let the character dictate the story. I’ve done this instinctively, and yet, when my draft is complete, I almost always have to dump that first chapter and […]