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June 2010: Learn to listen calmly to the comments and suggestions of people who read your work, and don’t take any of it as a personal criticism. Some of the comments may be way off base, others may open your eyes or spark your own good new ideas. Only you know which suggestions fit your goals.
May 2010: “Loan” is a noun, not a verb. The verb is “lend.” Yes, I know you see “loan” used as a verb all the time. That doesn’t make it right. (This is a serious peeve of mine — can you tell?) Here’s how to use them: · He needs a loan to pay for his new car. · I’m lending my lawn mower to the neighbors. · I lent her lunch money last week, and she repaid the loan a few days later.
April 2010: When you’re showing words coming out of someone’s mouth, “said” often says it all. The words within the quote should make it clear that the speaker is declaring, denying, apologizing, admonishing, or asserting. Never use physical actions to mean “said.” Do not let your characters laugh, shrug, sneer, chortle, smile, or pout their dialogue.
March 2010: In honor of National Grammar Day, March 4, check out the blog of grammar guru Pam Nelson, http://blogs.newsobserver.com/grammar/home. Pam offers advice and insights on grammar, usage, vocabulary, style and more. Try out her quizzes, too.
February 2010: Learn to say no to distractions that will take you away from writing. There will always be friends who need help, laundry that needs washing, good causes that need volunteers. If you don’t give your writing high priority, no one else will either. Take charge of your time and energy, and just write.
January 2010: Collect photos of places you might one day use as settings for your fiction. Your memory is no substitute for a good picture that shows colors and shadows, as well as architectural and environmental details. Use those visual details to enrich your descriptions and give your stories a deep sense of place.
December 2009: Keep descriptive words and phrases as close as possible to the things they describe. Carelessly placed modifiers will make your sentences confusing at best, hilarious at worst. Example: · Cryptic: Mary bought tickets for the “Disney on Ice” show Monday. · Clear: Mary bought tickets Monday for the “Disney on Ice” show.
November 2009: Use poetic techniques to add sparkle to all of your writing. Replace ordinary words with precise, lively words. Use alliterative phrases now and then. Look for ways to repeat the same vowel and/or consonant sounds within a sentence. Subtle changes like these will render your prose more graceful and musical.
October 2009: Eschew the utilization of gratuitous sesquipedalian verbiage. Translation: Go easy on all those big words. They just sound pretentious. Simple, direct sentences are the most accessible to your readers. If you must use a fancy word, choose it because it means precisely what you want to say and no other word will do.
September 2009: Bring settings alive with sensory detail. Think beyond what your character sees and hears. What does he smell? What’s the temperature? Is it dry or humid? Is the air still or breezy? What is he tasting? And how does he respond to each sensation? In describing each new scene, try to use at least three senses.
August 2009: Shake off your linguistic lethargy by writing about something small in scale — the sound of the fridge, the feel of a dog’s fur, the patterns in a paint splatter, or whatever. Don’t think, don’t plan, don’t edit. Don’t worry about punctuation or structure or what a reader might think. Just write. Keep streaming until it feels complete. THEN, and only then, you can reread what you’ve written. Or close your notebook without rereading. Breathe.
July 2009: You can harvest great ideas from your family tree. What adventures or hardships did your parents, grandparents or other relatives live through? Who made a difference in their lives? Flesh out and embellish family lore with your own imagination, and you’ll have plenty of material for unique characters and fresh, original stories.
June 2009: Figure out whether your dialogue is realistic by reading it aloud to someone else. You and your listener will quickly be able to tell whether that character, in that situation, would really say those words. If the dialogue seems stilted, try some improvisation. Act out the scene without a script, making up the dialogue as you go. Then write it down while you can still remember what you said.
May 2009: The words “between” and “among” are not interchangeable. Use “between” when two things are being related. Use “among” when there are more than two things in question. Examples: · Among the five sweaters on the shelf, she liked the blue one best. She had a tougher time choosing between the jeans and the khakis. · Between the two sweaters on the shelf, she liked the blue one better. She had a tougher time choosing among the jeans, the khakis, and the corduroys.
April 2009: If you want to start a critique group, one good way is to take a class in children’s writing (or whatever kind of writing you want to do), even if you already know how to write. You’ll meet others who share your interest, and the teacher will be a good professional contact for you. When the class ends, you can continue meeting with the classmates who are serious about their writing and you will all continue to grow — and publish — together.
March 2009: Join a critique group, or find a writing partner with whom you can exchange manuscripts and give each other feedback. It is often impossible to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in your own work, but a good group or partner can identify your story’s existing strengths and weaknesses and offer workable suggestions to help you build on what you’re already doing right.
February 2009: Practice character creation by making up a life story for a stranger. In a public place, unobtrusively observe someone you’ve never seen before. Then invent a life history that would explain why the person looks, dresses, moves and talks the way he or she does, and why the person is in this place at this time. What is the person’s goal today? How does he/she feel about that goal, and why? Keep adding details until you have a fully developed character with a rich, complex life.
January 2009: You don’t need a space on your bookshelf for a dictionary; it should always be at your side so you can make sure you know the meaning of every word you use. Here are a few tricky words, their real meanings, and how they are often misused. brogue — Irish accent (NOT Scottish) enormity — great wickedness (NOT great size) erstwhile — former (NOT respected) penultimate — second to last (NOT extreme ultimate) prodigal — recklessly wasteful (NOT wandering) wax — grow or become (NOT speak)
October-December 2008: In its most basic structure, a story has a beginning, middle and end. Swell, but just what does that mean? · Beginning — Introduce your characters, establish your setting, show the problem to be solved, the goal to be attained, or the change that launches the action. · Middle — Things happen that are outside the main character’s control, and the character reacts. AND the character makes decisions and takes action to make things happen. · End — The story can resolve in one of two ways: The main character achieves his goal or solves his problem. OR he decides he cannot or no longer wants to achieve what he set out to achieve, and he sets a new goal. Very important: All of the character’s decisions and actions grow out of who the character is and, especially, what the character wants.
September 2008: Make your characters different from each other in background, temperament and values. Don’t be afraid to let them have a flat-out argument over something they disagree on or resent about each other. The contrasts among your characters, and the conflicts sparked by those contrasts, will keep your story lively and interesting.
August 2008: Delete the Solitaire games from your computer. They consume time and mental energy you could be using to write. Better to turn your puzzle-solving skills to creating intricately imagined characters or working out plot problems.
July 2008: Give your characters a history with each other, going back way before the beginning of your story. How did they meet? What have they accomplished together? What have they argued over? What tough situations have they gotten through together? What secrets do they share? What are they keeping from each other? What’s their default activity when they get together with no particular plan? Everything that has happened between them before Page 1 should color what they do and say from Page 1 forward.
June 2008: “That” and “which” are not interchangeable. “That” introduces a clause essential to the meaning of the sentence; there are no commas around the clause. “Which” opens a clause that is not essential and so is enclosed in commas. Examples: · The car that gets the best mileage is the one we want. (If you removed “that gets the best mileage,” the sentence would lose its main meaning.) · The car, which is red, gets about 32 miles to the gallon. (You could take out “which is red” and the sentence would still have its main meaning.)
May 2008: Don’t rely on spellcheck to do your proofreading. You’ll end up with groves where you meant to carve grooves; beds in bad places; plumes where plums should be growing. In practical terms, editors may take such sloppiness as a signal that you are careless with facts as well.
April 2008: Read The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler. It’s a clear, concise guide to the structure of the Hero Myth, based on the work of Joseph Campbell. You’ll see how “Star Wars,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and a zillion other stories are really, at their core, the same story. And you’ll learn how you can adapt the classic structure to create your own compelling stories.
March 2008: A story begins when something changes. Identify the moment when something happens to throw your characters’ lives out of equilibrium, and make that your opening scene. You can use this technique in nonfiction, too: Start your book by describing a scene in which something happens that changes the course of events surrounding your subject.
February 2008: Write an autobiography for each of your main characters. This is the best way to get inside the character’s head. It’s important to write it in the first person so you can deeply explore the character’s feelings and make yourself fluent in the character’s voice.
January 2008: Keep an idea journal, and jot down any vague inklings of future stories you might write. When you’re stuck for a bright idea, flip through your journal. You’ll be amazed how many good ideas you’ve had that have slipped your mind completely. Good thing you wrote them down!
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