August Writing Challenges: Day 10 - Avoiding Passive Voice

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the tenth challenge we're going to learn how to avoid passive voice:

Before we start on the challenge, let's have a short reminder about "passive voice."
Passive Voice is a grammar term. It's a reading factor. In other words, it makes reading easier. Amateur writers horribly abuse passive voice. Corporate writers tend to use passive voice to excess, often to a level of 40% or higher. The passive sucks the life out of writing. So, be aware when using it. Clearly, any writer who uses the passive in 40% of his/her sentences isn't aware of it, right?

That's where the definition comes in:

Do you recall diagramming sentences in school? Oh, I can hear the groans all the way down in Florida!

Subject | Verb | Object

In this simple diagram of the active voice, the subject of the sentence goes ahead of the verb, or action word. The object of the sentence receives the action.

For example, "Rhonda eats the alien."

The subject of the sentence, Rhonda, acts, that is, she's the eater. The verb is eats. And, that makes alien the object. In this case, the direct object of the action, eats, acted out by Rhonda, the subject.

DIAGRAM:

Rhonda | eats | alien


To create a passive sentence we would do this:

The alien is eaten by Rhonda.

How? The subject of the sentence is acted upon.

Got it? Okay, let's try some exercises.



Here is your challenge:
Write these sentences into the active voice:

1. The battle was begun by the scouts blundering into each other in the night. But the war - the war was begun by politicians blundering in the light.
2. She was swept up in her own emotions, carried away by daydreams, buried in fantasy.
3. He was struck twice, first by fear, then by the realization that he loved her.

Next:
Now go back and re-evaluate each of your changes. Do you find at at lease one or two of the sample sentences read better in the passive, maybe even all three? Good. The point of this exercise is to assure you the passive is not always a bad thing. Don't let any writing how-to book tell you otherwise.



Passive Voice uses more words than active voice to express the same idea. Passive voice also softens the impact of your writing. You won't want to do that in tense action scenes because you won't grab the reader's attention. Passive voice is sometimes harder to read and more difficult to understand. And not just because it uses more words. In long sentences, you often have to reread parts to find the bottom line or search for the actor, if one even exists, it's at the tail end.

So, that's "passive" in a nutshell.

QUICK NOTE: Unless you are using the passive with a purpose, that is, to mellow out a passage, to avoid giving away a clue, or to slow down the pace of your novel, don't use it. Like most writing coaches, I urge you to use the active voice most of the time.

August Writing Challenges: Day 5 - Affirmations

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the fifth challenge we're going to get a little personal and hopefully in a positive way:

Here is your challenge:

Create several affirmations that are specific to you and provide uplifting words to help you stay positive.

What is an Affirmation? In New Thought and New Age terminology refer primarily to the practice of positive thinking and self-empowerment—fostering a belief that "a positive mental attitude supported by affirmations will achieve success in anything."

There are several general rules for writing affirmations. After you review those rules, you will begin to see that you truly can achieve that which you can conceive. Further, you will being to see that you want to!


Rules for Writing Affirmations:

Use the Here and Now
Write the affirmation as if you're already doing that which you desire to accomplish.

Keep it Real
Write affirmations that are realistic to you here and now. Don't set yourself up for failure. Know it, write it, and do it.

Write About What You Want
Write affirmations that state what you want and not what you don't want.

It's About You
Write affirmations about you and not about others.

Paint a Picture
Write affirmations that paid word pictures for you. Your words should be full of action and power.

Beware if You Share
Write affirmations that are only for you. If you share them, share only with people who will encourage you and not the "it can't be done crowd."

After you have written your affirmations, read them everyday. Read them with power and work at them with passion.

BE AS SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE!

Good affirmations start with words such as:

• I control my ...
• I am personally accountable for ...
• I take great pride in ...
• I have a positive ...
• I enjoy ...
• I believe in ...

Here is an affirmation to get you started. 

August Writing Challenges: Day 2 - Character Description

August. The summer is nearly over. Kids are going back to school. You now have some time on your hands.  Okay, you still have a list of chores a mile long, but let's put writing at the top of the priority list, okay?

I am going to challenge you with a writing prompt every day this month. Are you up for it? I hope so.

The writing challenges will be about a variety of topics and hopefully cause you to dig into your writing toolbox to complete with emotional skill.

Watch out, I just might throw in a fun one, well, just for fun!

For the second challenge we're really going to discover how descriptive you can be with characters:

Here is your challenge:

You swore you would not go to Thanksgiving dinner at your cousin's house ever again if she invited her ex-boyfriend. You go. He's there. Describe the dinner.

Tip: How do you reveal character through description?

The most obvious way to reveal characters is by describing what they look like: handsome or plain, wrinkled or smith face, color of hair, height, slim or average or fat, what kind of clothing they wear  and so forth.

Beginning writers overuse this techniques and often blurt everything out of the first time we meet the character.

People writing in the first person have an even harder time. Typically they end up having their character look in a mirror. It's an overused solution and it's clumsy.

When using description, pick out specific, interesting details. Try to stay away from generic descriptions like "handsome" or "attractive" or "motherly" unless you're just giving a quick indication of a minor character. For your major characters, provide specifics. For inspiration, consider the people you know.  When you base your descriptions on reality, you are less likely to fall back on cliches.

You can reveal character through:

• Setting
• Action
• Other People's Eyes

Have fun with this challenge!

Dialogue that Propels the Story Forward

"Blah, blah, blah," she said.

"Yup."

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Didn't understand it, more life it."

"Why you...!"

Have you ever experience or witnessed a conversation like that? Read one in your recent books? Did it make you want to throw the book against the wall and yell, "just get to the point!"

Been there.

Dialogue should be about something. It should move the plot forward in some way or it's useless. Pretty much like the beginning of this blog post, eh?

As a writing coach, it's difficult not to tell my clients that their dialogue just doesn't work, and then try to get them to understand that it must connect with the theme and plot, include tensions and suspense, all while moving the story forward.

So, they usually throw up their hands in despair and ask, "Why write at all?"

I have a trick or two to help you. Actually my trick is Gloria Kempton and her book Dialogue: Techniques and exercises for crafting effective dialogue. The tricks are hers and now yours.

Your Dialogue Must Move The Story Forward
Move the plot forward. Sounds easy, right?
Dialogue is a means to an end, not the end itself. Don't get all caught up in your characters having a great conversation that you forgot what your story was all about and why these two characters were in it.

Simple tip: You engage your characters in conflict and use dialogue to increase their struggle.

According to Ms. Kempton:

Dialogue is one of the fiction elements you can use to propel your plot forward and integrate your theme into each scene. They way you do this is to set your characters up in an animated discussion scene that does any one of a number of things: 

• provides new information to the characters about the conflict, 
• reveals new obstacles that the viewpoint character must overcome to achieve his goal, 
• creates the kind of dynamic between the scene characters that furthers the story's theme, 
• introduces a pivotal moment in the plot that transforms the character(s), 
• set up the discussion so the character (and reader) are reminded of his scene and story goals, 
• and/or accelerates the emotion and story movement to increase the suspense and make the situation more urgent for the characters.

If you remember the seven purpose of dialogues, you can get through this.

Provides New Information
Have your characters talking and then have one of them add a new bit of information that takes the conversation and plot into an entirely new direction. Throw obstacles at your readers.

Reveals New Obstacles
When considering dialogue, an obstacle to a character's goal works the same and throwing in a new topic or conversation direction that creates immediate conflict. The character can express his discomfort verbally, but he's going to have to physically do something to move the story forward.

Increases Suspense
Suspense increases when you keep making it look worse for your characters. You can do this very well with dialogue because the character is already "in the moment" and the reader is "watching" how the character is going to handle the suspense that's been dropped on him.

According to Ms. Kempton: Suspense is achieved in dialogue when the viewpoint character gets "that feeling" about the other character in the scene. Or suddenly realizes that things are not as they seem.

Furthers The Theme
Gloria Kempton loves when an author lets a character reveal the story's theme in dialogue. In her book, "Dialogue" she tells about getting a "kick" out of observing how other writers do it, whether novelists or screenwriters.

She says: When a character announces the story's theme in the middle of a passage of dialogue, it gives the other characters the opportunity to respond and move the action in one direction or another. This can be very effective, because while the reader my not necessarily be able to recognize the theme as the a-ha moment in the story, subconsciously it registers as a pivotal moment and the reader holds her breath, waiting to see how the other characters will respond.

Shows Character Transformation
As writers, we should be changing our characters, in subtle ways, throughout our story. This is why we write fiction. We want to show how our character can change. For the better or worse. In order for a transformation to happen, and our characters changed forever, a profound moment has to happen. In dialogue, it happens with words.

Reveals/Reminds of Goals
Obstacles. That's an important elements when helping characters change and move the story along. Throwing obstacles at your character reminds him/her about their goal, their intention in the scene, and in the story.  To do this the best way possible, you use your protagonist to show these change with action and dialogue.

Gloria says: In every scene, you want to remind your reader of the main character's intention, as this is the way you engage your reader and keep engaging her as the story progresses. Using dialogue for  this purpose is especially effective because the character is stating his goal out loud.

Would you rather your character say around and thought about his passion or reminisced about his intention? Showing with dialogue is so much better. And it moves the scene along.

Keeping Your Characters In Social Settings
I know it sounds simple, but dialogue can't happen if there isn't more than one character. If you have your character talk to themselves too long, the story goes south and the reader becomes bored. So, how do we keep the story moving? Add more than one character to the scene.

Readers really enjoy when characters are engaged in dialogue and action.

Simple Tip: A scene of dialogue must always move the story forward in some way.

There is a strategy for bringing all three elements of the scene together: dialogue, narrative, and action. It's so the scene is balanced and focused on its purpose.

Was this helpful?

Resource: Dialogue: Techniques an Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue by Gloria Kempton

Copyright: coramax / 123RF Stock Photo

Writing Tips - Telling a Story or Giving a Report?

The difference between "story" and "report" is crucial to the reader's expectation and the writer's execution.

The word "story" has a special meaning, and stories have specific requirements that create predictable effects.

What are the differences between "report" and "story", and how can the writer use them to strategic advantage?

A scholar by the name of Louise Rosenblatt argued at one point that readers read for two reasons:

1. Information
2. Experience

That's the difference.

Reports convey information. Stories create experience.

Reports transfer knowledge. Stories transport the reader.

The tools required to create reports and stories differ as well.

Every writer should know about the famous "Five W's and H". They've helped writers gather and convey information with the reader's interest in mind.

Who
What
Where
When
How

They are the most common elements of information.

When used in reports, these pieces of information are fixed in time, fixed so readers can scan and understand.

This is how you "un-fix" them, when you can transform information into narrative:

Who becomes Character
What becomes Action (What happened.)
Where becomes Setting
When becomes Chronology
Why becomes Cause or Motive
How becomes Process (How it happened.)

As the writer, you must figure out whether your project requires the crafting of a report, a story, or some combination of both.

In can be said that stories require rising and falling action, complications, points of insight, and resolutions. As a novelist, you can invent these movements into a story. However, as a reporter or non-fiction writer you must report them.

A narrative requires a story and a storyteller.

An article in a newspaper requires a reporter.

By combining story and report, you, the writer can speak to both our hearts and our heads, creating sympathy and understanding.

Here are some things you can do:

1. Look at the newspaper with the distinction between reports and stories in mind. Look for narrative opportunities missed. Look for bits of stories embedded in reports.
2. Take the same approach to your own work. Look for stories, or at least passages in stories, where you transport the reader to the scene. Search for places in your reports where you might have included story elements.
3. Reread the conversion list for the Five W's and H. Keep it handy the next time you research and write. Use it to transform report elements into the building blocks of a story.
4. The next time you read a novel, look for the ways in which the author weaves information about politics or history or geography into the tapestry of narrative. How can you apply these techniques in your own work?

So, in your next project, are you going to tell a story or give a report?

Writing Resource: Writing Tools - 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark

Writing Tips - Structuring Your Story

Story Structure. Think of it like building a house. You need the foundation which the story structure is built. And, you need framework, that holds the story together.

With me so far?

Within the framework of a story are three major elements:

1. Characters
2. Action
3. Conflict

Winding it up, the structure indicates that there must be a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We will not be discussing Plot. Plot is different from structure because it deals with a story's design. The architectural design of the structure. We'll deal with plot on another day.

So, does every writer need to structure their story the same way?

Of course not. You, as a writer, must figure out what works best for you from a various set of designs.

Some writers outline first.

Some writers begin with page one and just write.

Some writers start with character sketches and go from there.

Most writers are flexible with their ideas and plots and sketches. To them, so long as it all works out in the end, whatever worked was how it should have been.

So, how do you as the writer keep all of the bits and pieces of your story straight in your head and not float away?

One author I know uses Storyboarding. What they use is have a very large white dry-erase board hanging on a wall in their office. By figuring out the beginnings of the characters she maps out in a couple of sentences what the physical action is going to be. If there is a romantic relationship, she maps that out as well.

By using the storyboard, you can check your time line to be sure things are progressing in the right order. You can track your character development, even your settings, to make sure everything is in conjunction with everything else and all of these elements are compatible with the story line.

Don't be set on the ideas that you start with when you create your story line. Ideas will come to you as you write. It's up to you to decide if you are going to use them or not. Some ideas are just what your story was looking for, other ideas can be captured for use later either in this story or another story.

All in all, have fun with your story and don't be too rigid in your planning.

Writing Resource: How I Write - Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof

Image credit: AnnieAnnie / 123RF Stock Photo

Writing Tips - Instilling Immediacy into your Writing

When writing your story, you want to grab the reader and suck him/her into your book. You want your reader to experience your book as it's happening. Word by word. Emotion by emotion. Action by action. To do so, pay attention to the following three areas:



1. The Story's Structure

2. Description

3. Writing Style


The Story's Structure 
Right from the very first Chapter, your story must grab your reader. If you're not grabbing your reader look at the following:

Point of View: If the point of view is clear and consistent from the story's beginning, readers won't be forced to guess whose perception they are seeing through.

Conflict: Action proceeds from characters in conflict - and pulls readers into your story. If you have the conflict clearly in mind, and pose it clearly for the reader, you will reach for the more active phrases and situations that create immediacy.

Exposition and background: Long descriptions of character or setting background intrude on the reader's illusion. Many writers feel it is important to the reader to being their stories with such passages. Readers do not need the entire background of your fictional world to appreciate the story's movement. The opposite is true. A single sentence, if well-imagined and worded, can do that far more immediately.

Create Compelling Description
Animating objects is just one way for resting immediacy through description. Consider these others:
Create charged images: A charged image evokes all the other elements of your story - theme, character, conflict, setting, style, and so on. As the reader moves through the story, the charged image discharges its potency gradually, keeping the reader involved and intrigued.

Make descriptive sentences rhythmic, as opposed to mechanical.

Filter all description through point of view.

Be brief.

Writing Style
How you arrange your words, phrases, and sentences also contributes to the sense of immediacy that keeps readers engrossed in your story. There are certain styles and techniques you can use to create a forward flow:

State things in chronological sequence

Use active phrasing

Keep transitions crisp

Impinge phrases

Juxtapose elements

Use reveals and surprise to sustain the reader's immediate attention

Use repetition to emphasize certain elements

Avoid distractions and deadeners


Making fiction immediate is a tremendously awesome task. The biggest problem the author has is that he/she tens to own the emotions, imagination and intellect of the reader. We delude ourselves that what we put on paper will be as intensely immediate for the reader as it was for us.

You can overcome much of this occupational hazard by imagining as your write, an audience of strangers. Try to feel their living, breathing presence and respond to their craving for an immediately intense experience.

Writing Resource: The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing

Writing Tips - Character Motivation

How well do you know the character you are writing? Do you understand his/her wants, needs, desires, motivation? Have you delved into his/her background and found out all the secrets, the sorrows, and the loves found and lost? What makes your character do what they do? What stops them from doing something?

Do you understand your character's motivation?

Can you take an event from real life and put it in your story? What makes people believe a real life event but not when they are reading it?

I'll tell you. Because, in real life, people see the event happening. They accept it as a part of life. However, if you drop a "real life" event into your story, the reader will not accept the event because they didn't see it coming. The reader doesn't believe your character is capable of the actions you make them take.

Why?

Character Motivation.

You must build your character throughout your story. This gives your reader the ability to understand and empathize with your character. The reader gets to know your character and understands your character.

In order for the reader to understand your character, you must. If you don't know why your character acts like they do, how will you convince your reader to finish reading your book?

"In order to give your characters adequate and believable motivation for everything they do, therefore, you must give them the most typical and logical motivation - the thing most people would do under those circumstances." says Scott Meredith in his book, Writing to Sell.

Sott Meredith goes on to write, "It is only when the character's motives and actions are different from the norm - when he does something for an inadequate reason, or when he does exactly the opposite of what a normal person in that position might be expected to do - that it is disbelieved."

What happens when a person acts like they do in real life is acceptable. Make sure your character's actions are acceptable as well.

The only way to do that is to develop your character throughout your story and make their actions believable to the reader.

If your character is the hero of the story, then build your story around how brave your character is. If, three-quarters of the way through your story, you suddenly show that your hero acts in a timid way and doesn't rescue the girl, or punch the bad guy, then you've given your reader a reason to not believe in your character anymore and they will probably end up closing your book in disgust.

But, if you've developed your hero and shown the character's background as having a moment in their life that identifies why the hero didn't rescue the girl, then your more likely to keep the reader reading.

For example. Your hero wants to rescue the girl, but she's surrounded by snakes. And, in your hero's past he experienced a frightening time when he was trapped in a well as a child and the well was filled with snakes. You show in your story that the hero must fight with his internal conflict of being afraid of snakes and his external conflict of needing to save the girl. When you do so, the actions of the hero then become believable.

"Your motivation, in short, will be sound only if the character always acts typically - always acts like the kind of person you have shown him to be." writes Scott Meredith in Writing to Sell.

Now, let's take your snake-fearing hero. He sees how the girl is disgusted at his cowardice and so he's forced to be heroic. He overcomes his fear of snakes, rescues the girl, and they live happily ever after.

You've made your character act "drastically" different in a way that shows a change in character the reader can believe. You've given your character a way to reasonably manage his conflicts and change his character motivation.

In doing so, you've written a book with characters the reader can relate, believe in, and grow to love.

So, I will ask you again:

How well do you know your character?

Writing Tips - 8 Basics of Creative Writing

Today's lesson comes from Kurt Vonnegut. From Wikipedia "November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle (1963),Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blend satire, gallows humor, and science fiction. As a citizen he was a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a critical pacifist intellectual. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association."

About Vonnegut's writing career - also from Wikipedia - "Vonnegut's first short story, "Report on the Barnhouse Effect," appeared in the February 11, 1950, edition of Collier's (it has since been reprinted in his short story collection, Welcome to the Monkey House). His first novel was the dystopian novel Player Piano (1952), in which human workers have been largely replaced by machines. He continued to write short stories before his second novel, The Sirens of Titan, was published in 1959. Through the 1960s, the form of his work changed, from the relatively orthodox structure of Cat's Cradle (which in 1971 earned him a Master's Degree) to the acclaimed, semi-autobiographical Slaughterhouse-Five, given a more experimental structure by using time travel as a plot device. These structural experiments were continued in Breakfast of Champions (1973), which includes many rough illustrations, lengthy non-sequiturs, and an appearance by the author himself as adeus ex machina.

Vonnegut attempted suicide in 1984 and later wrote about this in several essays."

I won't go into them here, as they're not really writing related, but a collection of 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has or Will is something you might enjoy reading.

Something from Kurt Vonnegut that I will share with you is from the preface to his short story collection Bagombo Snuff Box. In it, Mr. Vonnegut shared what he calls Creative Writing 101. And, I share it with you today.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something; even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

There you have it. Wise words from a literary legend. 

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Bathtub Scene

Friday Five Minute Exercise - Bathtub Scene

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

2. Write about creating a scene where the character is taking a bath. "From "The Pocket Muse" by Monica Wood, she says, "In 'Making Shapely Fiction', the witty and wonderful Jerome Stern cautions against writing the 'bathtub story'. A bathtub story opens with the protagonist taking a bath (or occupying a similar confined space). During this bath, the protagonist things of, ruminates upon, wonders about, and analyzes the past, present, and future but he never gets out of the bathtub.". Try to write a bathtub scene that contradicts all of the above. Make your scene riveting, exciting, and action oriented.

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 add action and excitement? 

Why or Why Not?