When writers show readers the world around their characters, this is when a story can come alive. It’s the difference between dialogue existing on a black movie screen and an exchange that stirs your readers’ imaginations.
Sometimes, you might realize description would enhance a scene, but you aren’t quite sure how to turn a sentence from simple into masterful. There are three common weaknesses I stumble upon again and again in my editing work, so I wanted to pass on some possible solutions that may help.More
Choosing the right point of view for a story is hard. Sticking to that point of view can be even harder. This is a lesson that applies to creative writers, sure, but it’s also important for anyone trying to tell a story—be it in the voice of a brand or the voice of a pirate ghost trying to protect its lost treasure… or otherwise.
The key is consistency. Whatever narrative voice an author chooses, they must stay with it through the course of their text. Website homepages cannot jump from first person plural (we) to third person (the Acme Company) within a paragraph, and novels cannot vary between third person omniscient and third person limited (with limited exceptions). When the p.o.v. isn’t stable, the story becomes a bit wobbly—and not just for the picky editors among us.
A bit over two years ago, when I started this blog, I wasn’t sure if I would ever get to tip #100. Was this a worthy endeavor? Would people even care? Was there anyone out there who was as particular about this stuff as me? One hundred tips later, thanks for following, folks. It’s been a great journey, and I look forward to it continuing.
And speaking of which (yes, you can start sentences with “and” on occasion), last week, I said I’d have an announcement. Here it is:
My top 100 writing tips will be published in 2015. More on that soon, but without further ado, let’s get to today’s writing tip.
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“Mother, May I?” is so much more than a game. It’s a lesson in respect and grammar, isn’t it? The game isn’t called “Mother, Can I?” (You know where I’m going with this…)
I feel like most people know the difference between when we should use “may” and when we should use “can,” but no one takes the time to get it right. “May” is all about permission. “Can” is about physical ability.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” (I sure hope you can.)
“Can I walk down the street?” (It’s possible, but it might not be happening.)
“May I take three giant steps forward?” (Yes, you may.)
We’re all sloppy on this one, so I present a challenge to all of us. Channel the second grade teacher who first introduced you to this rule. Imagine the look on her face every time a student said this incorrectly. Take that look to heart. Embrace it. Internalize it. Then do the grammarians in the world (and yourself) a favor, and say it right.
You may have noticed that my Wednesday Writing Tips have focused on creative writing for the past few weeks. I’ve been so excited about the upcoming James River Writers Conference that I just couldn’t resist. Yes, we all need to know the differences between less and fewer, who and whom, and historic and historical; indeed, it’s important to know we’re spelling y’all, yeah/yay, and through/threw correctly; however, if our storytelling isn’t working, the entire piece suffers.
And for the storytellers among us, I have a special treat this week. The fabulous Kimiko Nakamura, literary agent at Dee Mura Literary, agreed to do an interview with me. I’ll just dive right in, but for more with Kimiko, she’ll be at the JRW conference this year. I’ll be there. Will you?
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KS: What drove you to become a literary agent?
KN: I grew up in a home overflowing with literature on every bookshelf we owned, real or makeshift.More
As writers, so often we talk about our success stories (publication!) and our laments (rejections, pesky punctuation, the bottom of a good bottle of wine…); I love the idea of taking a moment to talk process. Thanks so much to Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski for inviting me to join the #mywritingprocess blog tour. You can see Ellen’s blog here.
John Updike once wrote, “We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings… Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.”
It’s up to the writers. It’s up to us. And there are so many possibilities.
What am I working on?
Isn’t it odd that passionate American politicians of the early 20th century fought for the legal sterilization of certain “lesser” individuals employing the same morality language that politicians of the early 21st century use about prohibiting abortions? This dichotomy of social thought drives my novel Sterile, where neither my protagonist’s past nor her paint brushes have kept her hands clean. She may have lost her baby, but she has to fight not to lose her life.
***My interview with Deborah Grosvenor originally appeared onjamesriverwriters.orgahead of the 2013 James River Writers Conference***
Want to pitch to the literary agent who discovered Tom Clancy? Deborah Grosvenor saw The Hunt forRed October long before it hit the bookstores shelves. Maybe she’s destined to find her next big client at the James River Writers Conference when she joins us this October. Deborah will be taking pitches and sitting on panels throughout the two-day conference. We were honored when she took a moment to chat with us about the publishing world.More
You’ve got to love confusing homonyms – or perhaps near homonyms in this case. So often we know what we mean but then we just spell the first thing that comes to our mind. Spell-check doesn’t help in these cases, does it? Maybe Microsoft has someone working on that. Or they have enough to worry about at present. Maybe there’s hope in Google.
Either way, until a tech giant saves the spelling impaired, here are some simple reminders. “Defuse” means “to make less dangerous, tense, or embarrassing.” Its simplest use is “to remove the fuse from” – as in a bomb. With a pocket knife and duct tape. While doing work for the Phoenix Foundation. (Okay, perhaps the MacGyver piece is unnecessary for the exact definition, but you get the idea.) “Diffuse,” on the other hand means “to spread or scatter widely; to disseminate.” For the physics buffs out there, its simplest definition is “to spread by diffusion.” For those of us for whom this means nothing, think about “diffused light” – sunlight breaking through the morning fog as it lifts off the river. Illuminating a chase of one of Murdock’s lackeys by a spy in aviator sunglasses and a bomber jacket. A spy who’s rigged up an explosion downstream with a shoe lace, a pocket watch, and a potato. (Too much?)
We all have them. They attached themselves to our curious minds and tucked into brain winkles with their slippers and PJs on. For young readers today, maybe they’re wearing Snuggies.
Think back to your childhood, to that moment you marveled, you wondered, your tear ducts opened, or you held your breathe in suspense. We all have that one book that did it for us, that one book that made us view the force of words in an entirely new way.
For me, in 4th grade, Where the Red Fern Grows was the first book to make me cry. I honestly thought something was wrong with me. I was reading in bed, comfortable and warm. I could hear my family talking downstairs. My world was just fine, but I was bawling over my homework reading. This couldn’t be normal.
In 6th grade, Lois Lowry’s The Giver agitated my vision of the world. I closed that book curious, wanting to know more, wanting to figure out all of the ‘what if’s, wanting to know what was possible… Lois Lowry made me want to be an author.
All grown up now, I suppose, I look at myself as a writer. How much did these books affect what I write today? If not in style, how did they affect my purpose? Can books read in adulthood shake you to the core like they could when you were a child?
I’d like to create a list of great titles here. Please help my cause. These are the books that made you want to write, that showed you the power of literature. These are the books that we should share with our children and the ones we should explore further ourselves.
I’ll add two more to my list:
Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind
Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist
Now I will sadly admit that a hectic year hasn’t allowed me to read many 2010 book releases. I’m still catching up on 2008 and 2009, as well as working on the biggest release of 2012 (a writer can dream, right?).
But for those of us always adding to our reading list of books we just have to read, I thought the following lists were pretty interesting:
Cold breezes have begun along with those wet nights that make you want to just stay home and curl up on the couch, a cup of tea, and a cozy blanket. Winter is coming soon. After the holiday madness that ensues every year, there are those months of cold, of tucking away from the world with a good book.
I know it’s only November, and I suppose those slow winter days are still far in the future, but after a year of busy, the idea of me, my couch, and some of the above titles just sounds a bit glorious, doesn’t it?
And just in case you, like me, have those aspirations to be on these lists in a few years, check out James River Writers’ Best Unpublished Manuscript Contest:
When I find myself thinking about writers–about why so many of us are here–I find myself asking why is it that we write? Answering this question is simultaneously simple and impossible, personal and universal.
We write because words make us simultaneously giggle and blubber; we write because we have tiny beings called characters in our heads pounding their miniature fists against our brains as they beg to have their voices heard; we write because when we find words that work well together, we want to marry them on a riverbank on a sunny June afternoon; we write because if we didn’t, we would be pathological liars; we write because we have an odd habit of twisting words like licorice, tweaking, cajoling, poeticizing, intensifying, and making simple sentence structures shine like new; we write because the Muse is calling; we write because a book we read in 3rd or 6th or 11th grade revolutionized the existence of literature in the world; we write because we want to be bestsellers; we write because the world needs to know what we have to say; we write because we have to.
Now, maybe when you find yourself in the midst of accomplished authors, you have a desire to pick their brains like monkeys searching for nits of lice. Maybe with Scarlett O’Hara as your witness, you will never be rejected again, or perhaps you do not want to go gentle into that good write. Curiouser and Curiouser, indeed, I know, but again, it’s a curious journey we embark upon.
Hello world, I have something to say, and you know what? I bet you do too. I, for one, cannot wait to hear what comes out.