How to Strengthen Emotions in Our Writing
Want to avoid flat, unemotional writing? We have to match our characters’ emotional reactions to the stimulus, whether big or small.
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Fix 4 Common Writing Problems with “The Emotion Thesaurus”
A couple of weeks ago, Becca Puglisi, one of the co-authors of the fantastic Thesaurus books, shared her tips for using the new The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Negative Trait Thesaurus books. Her advice can help us develop our characters at all stages of planning, drafting, and editing. But the […]
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NaNo Wrap-Up: Beat Sheets 101
Not familiar with beat sheets or spreadsheet programs? Learn what the different columns and rows mean and how we can update the details for our unique story.
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5 Tips for Getting Unstuck in Our Story
If you struggle with writing or moving on when you’re stuck in a story, maybe one of these five tips will help.
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Stuck in Your Book? Try a Brainstorming Warm-up
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’ve started drafting a new story. The first week, my word counts were rather lame, but this past week has been going much better. Each day finds me getting into my writing groove more easily. I joked to my family that I’d […]
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Three Tips for Better Storytelling
Last time, we talked about how good storytelling can salvage even a poorly written book. As I mentioned in that post, storytelling skill is different from writing skill. Many people have a hard time defining what makes good storytelling—and that makes it difficult for us to improve. Yet I’d argue […]
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Why Is Storytelling Ability So Important?
What makes some poorly written books fall flat on their face while others succeed despite their flaws? One common answer is “storytelling ability.” But what is storytelling? The concept can seem vague and immeasurable—rather like “voice.” A recent experience with two poorly written books gave me insight into how a […]
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How to Revise for a Stronger Theme
Last time, we talked about using our story’s and characters’ themes to keep us on track as we draft. But no matter how well we know our themes during drafting, we can probably make them stronger in revision. Maybe we thought a character’s arc would focus on one theme, but […]
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Recipe for a Successful Synopsis
It’s easy to get wrapped up in our story’s subplots and twists and turns, but this recipe can cut through that confusion so we can complete a short, clear synopsis.
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Actions and Reactions: The End-All-Be-All of Storytelling
A story’s narrative is made up of a chain of actions (motivation/cause) and reactions (response/effect). The cause-and-effect chain, whether at the scale of story acts or sentences, creates our narrative drive: Is the story leading somewhere?
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