One of the ways we create compelling writing is by creating a need within our readers to keep turning pages. So a common piece of advice is to create hooks—phrases, sentences, ideas, questions, etc.—to fuel that need within readers. Today, Mary Buckham’s here to touch on the 9 types of hooks and to answer frequent questions about hooks.
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USA Today bestselling author Mary Buckham is back with Part Two of her guest post on writing active settings that keep our story flowing and connect readers to our characters. Today, she’s sharing the second biggest hurdle to writing great descriptions.
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The trick to sharing setting information (which our readers do need) without dragging down the pace is to write active descriptions. Active descriptions let the reader imagine the setting in their mind, keep them anchored in the story, and slip in information so seamlessly that they never realize they’re reading descriptions.
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Our story is—in many respects—what our story’s POV tells readers it is. So what do we want readers to get out of our story and chosen POV?
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Why is POV so important to understand? The better we understand the power of our character’s POV, the stronger we can make our characters and our story.
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There’s no wrong way to get to “The End” when drafting our book. That includes how some think about chapters as they write and some think about scenes.
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Several writing craft issues tend to be hallmarks of what’s called “lazy writing.” The practice of head hopping is usually considered lazy writing, but we might not understand why it earns that label. Let’s learn more and see how we can avoid head hopping and the “lazy writing” trap.
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We’ve been talking about the difference types of transitions we might create between scenes and plot events. Today, we’re focusing on the types of sentences that will strengthen our scene endings (and thus our scenes).
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Last time, we discussed how to identify and fix episodic writing to make our stories stronger with the “But” and “Therefore” rule. However, there’s another option for transitioning from scene to scene: the “meanwhile.”
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Deep POV relates the story from inside our character’s head, and subtext hides meanings between our words. Together, those concepts develop our characters and the relationship between them.
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