To be honest, your question stumped me for a moment. I doubt that being social helps because people in books don’t speak the same way that they do in real life. Not even close. Nor can you just pull sentences out of thin air. But I suspect that reading books that have the kind of …
Category: The Writing Life
What is the best point of view to use when writing a multi-character novel?
There’s a process by which you figure that out. First, what’s the genre of the novel? Some novels are so often done in one view-point or another that stories written in any other viewpoint will be ignored. Not read. IF you have a choice because such novels can use any of a number of viewpoints, …
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When starting a novel, is it good to create an outline of ideas or just to write the ideas into the story and hash it out later?
Either way works fine. It’s a personality thing. Are you the type who jumps into everything you do feet first? Or the type who researches everything before making a move? Which type you are tells you which way you should approach the craft of writing a story. Personally, I started out by jumping in feet …
Can I write a love story if I’ve never been in love?
Of course you can. If science fiction writers can write about worlds and times that don’t exist, then you can write about love. All it takes is a well-honed —- and well-trained —- imagination. Because describing something you don’t personally know without thinking through how you want to do it, is an exercise in futility …
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What are female character cliches to avoid?
There are no cliches to avoid, male or female. None. Cliches exist because they clue the reader into the character being described quickly and easily. That can be a good thing because it saves time and effort that can be put to better use telling the story. The thing is, do a good job of …
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I’m writing a novel and I’m finding it hard to make my chapters long enough, I’m currently on a 2 page long fight scene to start my book and I want to to at least break 4 pages, any ideas?
Common problem. Trust me on that. Take a walk. Get away from your computer and stop staring at that dratted screen. While walking and enjoying the weather and the trees and the beautiful birds overhead, think about your story. Dig deeper. Get inside the head of each and every protagonist in that fight scene. What …
Is it better to get all of your ideas out and write a novel quickly, or to spend years in the process of curating the story and its elements?
Depends. Some writers work best slowly and carefully, deciding each and every element and making sure the whole things works together. Others work best just sitting down and letting it all come out in one huge, whoosh. It’s a personality thing, not a writer thing. So go with whatever works for you.
How does one begin writing a fantasy novel?
Fantasy requires building a world that doesn’t exist but must live full-blown and realistic in the mind of the reader. So the first thing a writer of fantasy must do — after creating the story and the characters, of course — is to create the world that the story and characters will live in and …
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What is the biggest secret about fiction writing?
The biggest secret is that there’s no secret at all. It’s just work, work, work and write, write, write and read, read, read. Then stop and look at what you just did. And repeat until someone says you’re a really good writer. Then you still repeat ad infinitum.
How do you develop the ability to ‘show not tell’ as a writer?
First of all, ‘show, don’t tell’ is important. It is. But it’s also a bit oversold to new writers because at some point readers need to know stuff that simply can’t be ‘shown.’ Think about it. If you stopped your action for a flashback to ‘show’ why the protagonist is doing what they are …
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