How to Improve Our Story with Action Beats
For dialogue attribution, action beats are more flexible than dialogue tags for our writing, adding details to our story and immersing readers in the scene.
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How Should We Format Non-English Words?
As authors and audiences have diversified, it might be time to look at the standards for formatting non-English words and explore some of our options.
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Active vs. Passive Voice: Was and Not Was
Some verb tenses can cause confusion with passive voice. What is passive voice, and how can we tell when the word “was” is not a sign of passive voice?
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Beyond the Past: Understanding the Past Perfect Tense
Many writers struggle to use the past perfect tense correctly, so let’s review when the past perfect tense applies to our story and how to use it properly.
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Character Internalization: To Italicize or Not to Italicize?
A common question in writing forums asks when we should italicize a character’s thoughts. How should we format our characters’ internalizations?
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Writing Craft Basics: How to Format Dialogue
We probably think we know everything about dialogue formatting already, but let’s make sure we know all there is to know before assuming.
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Story Elements: Give Them Purpose
For a strong story pace, we need to ensure every element has purpose. How can we do that? How can we know if a scene or sentence is pointless?
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Unreliable Narrators: The Pros and Cons
Let’s talk unreliable narrators: What can they do for our story, how can we create them, and what are the pros and cons of using them?
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Romance Beats vs. 12 Stages of Intimacy
A reader asked how we’d place the 12 Stages on Intimacy on a beat sheet for the best pacing. Can we mesh the 12 Stages with romance beats in a story?
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Backstory: Avoid Info Dumping by Making It Essential: Part 5 — Guest: Kris Kennedy
Once we know what our character’s backstory makes them think they could never do, we know how to show their path of change and growth over the story.
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