Monday, July 29, 2013

Writing Tips - Character Development

If you've been living anywhere but under a rock, you know about the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I've read then all and eagerly await the next in the series. Janet Evanovich creates richly developed characters in this great series and I'm going to share with you how she does that. These excerpts come from How I Write - Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof.

Memorable characters. It's what makes a good story a great story. In order to create memorable characters you must breathe life into them. Make them living beings with a personality.

"It's important to tell a good story, but it's critical to have memorable characters. It's not enough to describe a character's physical attributes and to tell us what he does and where he goes. You must bring your characters to life, make them believable and with caring about. Do this by motivating them and giving them personalities that set them apart from any other character you've read or written about. The deeper and richer your characters are, and the more emotion you put into them, the more your story will come to life. .... It doesn't matter if your reader loves or hates your characters. What matters is that the reader feels something. He must never be ambivalent toward these people, which means that as the writer, you can never be ambivalent, either." -- Ina Yalof

Tips from Janet Evanovich:

1. A well-developed character is multidimensional, with quirks and flaws, dreams, motivations, and values.
2. Your character must always want something. When something or someone stands in the way of your character getting what he wants, you get the beginning of conflict. It's the conflict that sets up the story. How that character meets the challenge and overcomes the obstacles of the conflict defines that character.
3. All writers are people watchers. If you want characters that ring true, take a really close look at the people around you. Begin with them, and then let your imagination run wild. Also, keep your ear to the ground and develop and ability to listen.
4. Everything you see and hear and experience can find its way into a story. Just store all this stuff up in your brain and retrieve it as you need it.
5. Television and movies are another source of inspiration for characters.
6. Everyday life is a limitless resource.
7. One element that makes up a well drawn character is honesty.
8. If you make a character real and vulnerable and kind, as soon as you put that character in jeopardy or any type of distress, the reader will always root for that person to win, or succeed, or make it out safely. To make a character vulnerable, just keep him a little bit unsure of himself and his choices. That's one way of connecting the reader with the character, which is what you want. It also keeps him wondering what's next.
9. Humor is the icing, but character is the cake.
10. When it comes to research you really need to know what you are doing.


There you have it. How to develop a memorable character. Now get out there and start creating!


Friday, July 26, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Trust


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Trust. Write a self-analysis essay detailing your ability to trust others. Write about trust as it relates to your life. Do you have to trust in order to love or be loved? How do you deal with your trust issues? Do you use work or shopping to escape the pain of dealing with this issue? Is it hard to rely on the integrity, veracity or reliability of a person or thing as a writer?

Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Were you able to find and write about your own ability to trust or trust issues that you might have and how they relate to you as a writer? 

Why or Why Not?





Monday, July 22, 2013

Writing Tips - Style Reminders

Trying to explain a style of writing is something like trying to nail jello to a tree. You can try all you want, but it's just not going to work.

Writing style is as different as there are writers in the world. Everyone has their own style of writing. A way or combining words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs that is uniquely their own.

In the Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, they devote an entire section to style. Do they explain it as a set of rules? No. Not hardly. But, what they do is give you a guideline of things to remember as you create your own style of writing.

To quote Strunk & White, "Style is an increment in writing. When we speak of Fitzgerald's style, we don't mean his command of the relative pronoun, we mean the sound his words make on paper. Every writer, by the way he uses the language, reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias. This is inevitable as well as enjoyable. All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation -- it is the Self escaping into the open."

Per the Elements of Style, here are 21 reminders to develop your own writing style.

1. Place yourself in the background.
2. Write in a way that comes naturally.
3. Work from a suitable design.
4. Write with nouns and verbs.
5. Revise and rewrite.
6. Do not overwrite.
7. Do not overstate.
8. Avoid the use of qualifiers.
9. Do not affect a breezy manner.
10. Use orthodox spelling.
11. Do not explain too much.
12. Do not construct awkward adverbs.
13. Make sure the reader knows who is speaking.
14. Avoid fancy words.
15. Do not use dialect unless your ear is good.
16. Be clear.
17. Do not inject opinion.
18. Use figures of speech sparingly.
19. Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity.
20. Avoid foreign languages.
21. Prefer the standard to the offbeat.

There you have it. Now get out there and start developing your own personal writing style. Make it memorable!



Saturday, July 20, 2013

Grammarly - A Review & Giveaway


"Grammarly is an online tool that corrects and explains those pesky grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes that are bound to find their way into your first draft. Think of us as that second pair of eyes that can spare you the frustrating cost of hiring a proofreader. Our algorithm catches around ten times more errors than leading word processing software and is trusted by three million users."

Using Grammarly is simple enough. You open your account. Paste your text into the blank document. Then, select a paper type or it defaults to "creative". Next, you press the "Start Review" button and it begins processing your text. Depending on the length of the text you pasted into the document it could return with a report in less than a minute or a few minutes. 

It highlights each section of your document with the "incorrect" text and returns with an explanation (short or long) with examples of use or misuse and sometimes an option to fix the text with the suggested correction. Once you've resolved that issue or ignored it you can click "Next" to continue through your document. 

If you have questions about a suggested fix to your text, you have the opportunity to ask a community of other Grammarly users.

The application will tell you how many issues were found and give you a score out of 100. It tracks this information in the "Dashboard" section of your account. 

There is a summary you can review and you can save and or print your report. 

I used Grammarly to test it on a recent short story I wrote that I submitted to a contest. It didn't win, unfortunately, but using Grammarly told me that there were at least 5 issues with my story and how to fix them. Maybe if I had used Grammarly before submitting, I might have had different results with the contest.

This application really gets to the nitty gritty of proofreading. I'd suggest you take a look at it and see if it would work for you.

I'd like to give you the opportunity to try Grammarly yourself for free. The first five people to comment receive a FREE 3-month premium account of Grammarly.





Friday, July 19, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Liberation


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Liberation. Write about your definition of liberation and how it relates to your purpose as a person and as a writer.

Webster's Dictionary defines liberation and liberality in the following ways:

- The quality of being liberal
- Generosity
- Broad-mindedness
- A gift - donation
- To set free, as from bondage
- To free from oppression or from conventions considered oppressive
- A political and social movement formed to promote the interests of a group regarded as the object of unfair discrimination or bas: Women's liberation
- The stare of being free in action or thought from the domination of others or from restricting circumstances; freedom
- A particular permission, right, or privilege
- Free, unconfined

Do these definitions of liberation rouse emotions in you as a writer? Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Were you able to find and write about your own liberations and how they relate to you as a writer? Were you able to define how liberation and integrity and the ability to achieve success relate?

Why or Why Not?




Monday, July 15, 2013

Writing Tips - 8 Good Writing Practices

From Gotham Writers' Workshop Inc. and an article in The Guardian comes advice from the Science Fiction and Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman.

8 Good Writing Practices

1. Write.
2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3. Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5. Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it they are almost always wrong.
6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7. Laugh at your own jokes.
8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. Bt it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best as you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.


Friday, July 12, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Respect


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Respect. How do you deal with people who do not respect your views? Is your writing a voice for views that will not be heard by people with closed ears and minds? Do you think integrity and respect are related? How does your writing suffer or improve as your looking glass reflects the respect of others?  Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Were you able to find and write about your own respect and views while you write? Were you able to define how integrity and the ability to write with respect are reflective? Does your writing suffer or improve based on respect?

Why or Why Not?




Monday, July 8, 2013

Writing Tips - 5 Bits of Writing Advice

From Gotham Writers' Workshop Inc. and an article in The Guardian comes some great advice about writing from P.D. James.

5 Bits of Writing Advice

1. Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

2. Read widely and with discrimination. bad writing is contagious.

3. Don't just plan to write - write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.

4. Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.

5. Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer - however happy, however tragic - is ever wasted.


Friday, July 5, 2013

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Work


1. Set your clocks/timers for Five (5) Minutes.

2. Write about Work. What attitudes do you have towards work and writing? Is work something you feel you have to do? Do you feel that having the ability to work is a blessing? Do you become anxious over deadlines? Do you create and repeat behavior patterns that create anxiety when you work? Create a writing plan - allow yourself time and empty space to create and work well. Get into as much detail as you can for the next five minutes.

3. Ready?

4. Go.

5. Finished? Review and be amazed.

I hope you had fun. Come back next Friday for a new writing prompt.

Was this exercise helpful?


Did you succeed with this writing exercise? Was it helpful? Were you able to define how work relates to you? Did you understand whether work brings upon anxiety? Were you able to create a writing plan that works for you?

Why or Why Not?




Monday, July 1, 2013

Writing Tips - 10 Rules for Good Writing

From Gotham Writers' Workshop Inc. comes the secret of Elmore Leonard's being both popular and respectable. Here are Leonard's 10 Rules for Good Writing excerpted from the New York Times article, Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the very "said" ... he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose".
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Elmore Leonard's most import rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.