Category: About Writing
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About Writing: Choose Your Own Adventure
You make choices every day, from what to have for breakfast onwards. You make choices for your characters too, deciding their height, weight, and dental hygiene. But giving your characters choices makes them more dynamic, makes them more interesting, and makes for more interesting obstacles to overcome. It’s also a good way to elevate the…
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How To Get More Writing Done
How to get more writing done …
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About Writing: A Very Quick Tip
Here’s a very quick tip. Read that last sentence back and see if you can figure out what’s wrong with it. It’s one word too long. Don’t you think it reads much better as: Here’s a quick tip. It doesn’t make me very annoyed when I see the word very in a sentence, it makes…
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About Writing: Your Hero Is A Hurdler
Your hero is a hurdler, so make sure you put up some hurdles. You hear me banging on a lot about figuring out what it is your character WANTS and NEEDS, and how isolating that one desire can motivate your entire story. I tend to gloss over the other important part of the equation though.…
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About Writing: How To Terraform Your Flat Scenes
You’ve done it. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. We’ve finished a scene or a chapter and read it back, realising with growing annoyance that it’s more dull than a rusty spoon. So here are some tips to add some fizz to those mundane scenes. Add A Temporary Antagonist I’ve blogged elsewhere about the importance of…
