We were talking about the premise previously and how having a premise will help you stay on track with your outline, and help keep your story structure and character arcs in line. The bare bones purpose of the premise is to show your character, the stakes, and define the character\’s goal, and imply the story\’s … Read more
I was sitting with my critique partner last week, and the topic of the premise came up. We were talking about his new story outline, which he has been working on to have the structure solid before he began writing. This is a great idea, especially for pansters (those writers who write by the seat … Read more
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been contemplating Show v Tell, trying to offer some information about the elusive topic and trying to explain why, in fiction, showing is better than telling for the majority of your story, though both are necessary. Now that you have the general idea about what showing is compared to … Read more
Last week we talked about the showing part in Show v Tell. This week we will take a look at the telling side of the equation. What is telling? Telling is writing with a style that uses primarily narrative exposition. It is explaining the story to the reader. The writer uses this style to provide … Read more
Show v Tell is the most ethereal craft concept to learn for new writers. Show v tell is so elusive that even a search on Amazon for books on the topic brings up very few results, and few of those results appear to be promising. Even Writer’s Digest only has one title available (Showing & … Read more
When you think about Scene Setting, you are usually describing a place. I say you in the plural sense in that you are the writer, the narrator, the POV character, the hero, the villain, everyone. So it is possible to get confused on which “you” you are at any given moment. Consequently, it might be … Read more
Why do you need to worry about Scene Setting? It is one of the most important elements in fiction writing. If your readers don’t know when and/or where the story takes place, they will become confused and put down your book. Given the short period of time that readers will browse through your book before … Read more
I was intending to write on Scene Setting this week but was distracted by a productivity question over the weekend. The question was something to the effect of, \”I can\’t seem to finish my draft. Can you help me?\” This is one of those questions that generate a bazillion How-to posts like you\’ve seen everywhere on the … Read more
I received an email last week from a writer who felt her pages were flat. This writer (and her critique group) felt that she didn’t seem to generate much depth of emotion for her readers. I asked for a few pages of her current work in progress and saw that this writer, who was working … Read more
After last week’s post on POV, I’ve been thinking about POV rules. I was contacted by someone asking about the particular POV they must use to write a story in a particular genre. It irked me. Not the person asking the question, but the whole POV rule concept. There are some out there in internet … Read more