Make Something Happen
“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” – Elmore Leonard I love this quote. Not just because it indirectly gives purpose to the existence of content editors. (Mostly because of that.) But also because it’s impossibly clever and initially appears to be cleverly impossible. I mean, how do you do that? Some readers tend to skip long descriptive sections. So you should leave those out, right? Not necessarily. There’s nothing wrong with good descriptive writing. If your voice happens to be descriptive, some readers are going to go skipping. You can’t stop them. Other readers become impatient with anything that reminds them even remotely of a history textbook. No problem. Just delete it all. Um, unless your novel kind...
How to Write Good Dialogue
Well-written dialogue doesn’t draw attention to itself. Instead, it quietly goes about its business, revealing truth and ferrying the plot toward its conclusion. Bad dialogue, on the other hand, stands out like a man wearing a clown costume to a funeral. (Unless it’s a clown funeral. Then it’s like a man not wearing a clown costume to a funeral.) But for all its invisibility, good dialogue does a lot of heavy lifting. Besides giving voice to your characters, dialogue frequently puts legs on that “show, don’t tell” axiom. For a rare few writers, writing dialogue is as natural as breathing. It’s second nature to them. But for many others, writing good dialogue is one part chore, two parts challenge. For them, dialogue is an...
The Editor’s Hat – 11 Tips for Your Second Draft
Your first draft is done. Wait, it’s not? Then go away and don’t come back until it is. This is not the post you’re looking for. The rest of you can stay, but only if you promise not to make fun of the people who aren’t finished with their first drafts yet. Because you were like them once. And I still am. Okay. [I know. There's no need for "Okay" here. It's superfluous. I should just get right to the 11 tips. But I'm keeping it. "Okay" is an intentionally overused aspect of my subtly ironic faux-conversational style. What, you thought I didn't know I overuse it? I do. Also? All this bracketed content would be meaningless without it.] You wrote a novel. Sure, it probably sucks in its current condition, but so does so much published work, am...
How to Increase Your Novel’s Word Count
Word count is the devil you have to love, or at the very least, respect. This is a true statement if your goal is to be published (through traditional methods) someday. Those of you who don’t care about traditional publishing can leave the room now. Go play cricket or bake a souffle or save the whales. Then write about it. Use as many words as you like. The rest of you, please select an abacus from the abacus cabinet and have a seat. Unless you’ve already had significant publishing success or your last name is Rowling or King, you’re going to have to pay close attention to The Count. You’re picturing that vampiric puppet from Sesame Street, aren’t you? Now you’re thinking about vampires. Now you’re thinking about Edward...
Sorting Through the Noise
So you sit down to write, and that’s when you hear it. (Okay, maybe you stand to write, but…really? Are you one of those standing desk people? I’ll bet you have great calves and a resting pulse under 60, but you’re making those of us who would rather write from the horizontal office* look bad. So stop it. At the very least, sit down. At a desk.) The noise. No, not your character’s voices. Well, they’re in the mix somewhere, but it’s hard to hear them above the literary agent screaming about why it’s critically important to make your first page shine and the writing expert who keeps repeating the mysterious phrase “economy of words” and the blogger who is whispering something about the evils of...
The Beauty of Things Unsaid (Advice for the 2nd Draft)
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov Words are a writer’s currency. But too many words – or the wrong ones – will devalue a written work faster than an oil spill devalues an oil company’s stock. This isn’t news to you. You know all too well the struggle to find the right words to tell your story. (Put down the thesaurus. That’s not what I mean. Have you even been reading this blog?) And so you write. And write. And write some more. And you finally finish your first draft. And yet when you go back to read what you’ve written, it just doesn’t “feel” right. It’s not like you’re missing any key ingredients. The characters are...
