Tag: Writing Advice

Getting a Grip on Completing Unfinished Writing

One charm of both growing older and practicing writing craft for many years has been gaining the skills for dealing with my more annoying writing proclivities. The bad habits that hold me back. That hold many a writer back, in fact. Specifically, in this case, the vicious cycle of starting a project, then jumping to a new project before finishing because the new idea looks both shinier and easier than the current one. 

I enjoy a challenge, but only to a certain point, so if a task feels beyond my skills to overcome, I will simply walk away. This habit comes from playing puzzle-based video games when I was a kid. I found that instead of bashing my head against a room I couldn’t solve, I could put the controller down, do something else, and chew on the problem in the background. Once I returned, often the answer came to me immediately. So when I run up against a plot problem, I tend to do the same thing. 

Only there’s always a new idea bubbling in the back of my brain, ready to pounce the second I look away from that original project. I’ll work on this instead. I’m sure I’ll finish this one. 

On and on.

Charge Your Prose: Using all five senses to bring readers into your story

When I made a conscious choice early in my writing career to include all five senses in each short story or scene, no matter what, readers began telling me, “I really felt like I was there.” The shared experience of senses invites your readers into your narrative, drawing on memory to paint a vivid picture they can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.

Readers know the swish of long grass against their shins, smoke tinging a morning red, a mouthwatering cake baking in an oven, the coppery flavor of a bitten tongue, the painful zing of an electric shock. Constant sensory input, telling them what’s going on. Nothing builds a fully three-dimensional story for your readers like filtering all five senses through your point-of-view character’s physical experiences.

However, utilizing the senses in your prose requires some finesse and some thinking outside the box. All five senses should appear in each of your scenes, but some are harder to incorporate than others. Here, I’ve outlined both the order of frequency that each sense typically appears in prose, as well as suggestions for digging deep into representing each included sense.

Never Apologize: A note to writers about burnout guilt

Writers get burned out. Maybe now more than ever. Hustle culture for writers comes with all the struggle—late nights, weekends, and maintaining an online presence squeezed in around a day job, family, and health—with very little of the reward that should come with hustling. In fact, a 2018 Author's Guild survey shows the median American author income in 2017 had dropped to an annual salary of $6,080.

Yikes on bikes, that's bad.

‘Said’ vs. Synonyms: How to use both as dialogue tags

Heated debate rampages across the online writing community as to which dialogue tag is morally, ethically, and mechanically correct to use: 'said' or one of its many synonyms. Use all the alternatives! Never deviate from 'said!' A great way to get (angry, rageful) interaction on Twitter is to ask the writing community which to use.

We average writers get caught in the middle. We just want to know the answer so we can keep writing, not start a flame war between influencer titans. We get mixed results, however, because the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the mix of both.

Let's talk about what that means.

How to Find and Fix Filter Words and Filter Phrases in Your Writing

Writing advice often relates to the same two topics: show, don't tell and write in the active voice. So, say you're taking on these two nuggets of wisdom. You're ready to incorporate the advice you keep getting from your critique partner(s) and your writing group! You've learned everything you need to know about how to change passive voice into active voice and how to show rather than tell. Yet, even though you've made certain to use verbs that aren't being verbs and you've incorporated adjectives as descriptors, your writing still feels clunky. It's still getting dinged at your critique group meetings.

This is because oops! in trying to fix one problem, you've introduced a new problem. And that's the use of filter words and filter phrases in your writing.

Opening Sentences: Central Conflict as the Narrative Hook

Deep down, or maybe not so deep down, writers know the value of a good opening sentence. Because writers are readers and have read a multitude of first sentences that draw them straight into the story. Even if you don't know how, you know why: the hook. That magical gimmick that entices readers to keep reading, to buy the book, to read to the end, to tell their friends.

So I'm sure you know why you need The Hook. But how to create it? Structure it? Incorporate it into your story?

The Power of Rearranging Your Sentences

Do your sentences ramble with a bunch of important details attached to the the ends? Like the equivalent of remembering relevant information for the story you're telling your co-worker, but only after you've told most of it.

When you notice your sentences always or often follow this pattern, you may begin wondering how to fix this. Add more punch. Sprinkle your sentences with style, like those writers whose sentences pulse through the page like magic.

Below, check out how to mix your dull and extraneous sentences up and bring them to life!

The Time and Place for Passive Voice

How to talk about passive voice as a useful thing? An okay thing? An allowed thing? So many of us as writers have received the advice that we need to change the passive voice in our work to active voice. This is good and important advice. You should do that.

Reading too much passive voice is unpleasant and boring. But, contrary to what short, insightful, and thought provoking nuggets of wisdom like write in active voice would have you think, passive voice has a place in your prose. Albeit, a sparing one.