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Dazzling Dialogue—Part VII
Posted on February 14, 2018 Leave a Comment
Cut it out! Pare it down. Weed out unnecessary words. Instead of a long, flowery sentence, like this one, sometimes the use of shorter sentences can add sizzle and shine to your dialogue and make it dazzle. Click to Tweet #DazzlingDialogue #amwriting
Story-fixing Your Novel––Part X
Posted on March 15, 2017 Leave a Comment
There is an abundance of material we could continue to cover on this general subject, but I would suggest that if you like what you’ve seen, you purchase Steven James’ Troubleshooting Your Novel. He has so much more in that book than we can share with you in ten parts. To finish up this series, […]
Seamless Self-Editing––Part VI
Posted on March 23, 2016 Leave a Comment
For the next couple weeks, I’ll be referring back to a resource I used a year or so ago, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. A few months ago, I met Robert Whitlow, a successful suspense author, who said this book taught him how to write. He was a prosperous attorney in the South, as well. Some […]
Seamless Self-Editing––Part V
Posted on March 16, 2016 1 Comment
Writers write because we love to use words, but let’s face it––even though we say we write for ourselves, we all want to be published and have many others read what we’ve written, for the mutual benefit of ourselves and our readers. That’s why self-editing is important. We must do everything we can to get […]
Seamless Self-Editing—Part II
Posted on February 24, 2016 Leave a Comment
Last week, I started a series of blog posts on Seamless Self-Editing. Let’s get our manuscript “publish-ready.” Refer to last week’s post for my definition. Today, we’ll look at basic proofreading. Spell check in Microsoft Word or whatever word processing program you use—is simply not good enough. Click to Tweet #amwriting #publishready #selfediting The following […]
Show and Tell — Part III When to Use Narrative Summary
Posted on September 16, 2015 Leave a Comment
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers By Renni Browne & Dave King Second Edition In referring to this resource on Show v. Tell, today, we’ll be looking at times when narrative summary (telling) can actually enhance the scenes that advance the story along (showing). Click to Tweet #selfediting #amwriting #showvtell
Show and Tell — Part II
Posted on September 9, 2015 Leave a Comment
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers By Renni Browne & Dave King Second Edition I started this series last week because of a discussion amongst a few fellow fiction writers, none of us, I might add, are published. I think one of us had some sort of writing training years ago in a traditional college setting. My […]
Writing–The Mystery of Characters Part I
Posted on April 15, 2015 Leave a Comment
What is a character? An imaginary person we writers think up. How did I create Meghan Gallagher? She started out as a nineteen-year-old very unlikeable spoiled brat, which is what I wanted her to be, but soon learned no one wants to read about a spoiled brat, even though she was going to change drastically. […]
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers – Dialogue
Posted on February 26, 2015 Leave a Comment
I used this resource a while back to talk about Point of View. Because point-of-view is something a lot of writers struggle with. I know I did. But there’s so much more to this book. I’m going to focus on dialogue, because that’s another area where beginning writers turn potential editors and agents off. Now, […]
Donna L.H. Smith 