One of the most important decisions you will make in writing your story is choosing which point of view to use. The point of view is the “head” or “camera angle” from which the action will be filtered. Depending on which source you study, there are a variable number of points of view to choose […]
If the first rule of writing is Show, Don’t Tell, the second should be Keep It Active. Active voice is what puts us in the middle of the action and allows us to feel. Passive voice is what gives us the feeling that someone is telling us a story that happened once upon a time. […]
Giving life to a character is one of the most rewarding parts of being a writer. It is also one of the most difficult. Too many times in fiction we witness the “cardboard” or one-dimensional character. Real characters, those we can visualize and root for and love, aren’t created with the snap of a finger. […]
Have you ever read a court transcript? It accurately gives a word-by-word report of exactly what is said. But it is interesting? Uh-uh. If we wrote verbatim the way we talk, our readers would execute us at dawn (or maybe earlier). So what do we do to create “natural” dialogue? First, we must listen to […]
“Just be like that,” she pouted. “Oh, come on,” he groaned. “Not this again.” “You don’t love me,” she replied. “Right,” he snarled. “That’s why I bought you an eight hundred dollar diamond.” “Here,” she sobbed. “Just take it back. Take it.” Okay, what’s wrong with our sample above (other than being melodramatic)? It’s an […]