Category Archives: Craft

January 9, 2012

Making minor characters interesting

It is so easy to overlook the minor characters in your fiction. But you miss a great opportunity to make your work more interesting if you just use them as placeholders. Compare the following two excerpts to see what I mean:

After a minute, the door opened and Mrs. Celia Stephenson stood there. “Good morning, Miss Violet,” she said. “Your mother is not up yet. Would you like to wait, while I knock on her door?”

Mrs. Celia Stephenson, Mother’s landlady, opened the door a chink, revealing one well-shaped blue eye surrounded by mascara. “Your mother isn’t up yet,” she remarked, swinging the door open while her lips curved into a smile. “Would you like me to knock?”

Which seems more vivid to you?

Here is another example. One of my minor characters is a priest. Originally, I had decided to make him homely, prayerful and totally supportive of his brother, the major character. Then I went looking for images for my main characters, faces that I could pin their names onto. (I went online and searched Google images). I had a brainwave. Suppose I made the priest even more handsome than his dishy brother (the love interest in the novel), suppose I gave him a faint scar that ran down his cheek, and suppose I gave him a faint connection to the Chicago Outfit (the precursor to the mob).

What do you think? Which version of the priest would you rather read about? What do you think of the image of Raoul Bova, the Italian actor? Too handsome for a priest??

Do you have any craft tips you’d like to share? If so, drop a message in the comment box.

Have a wonderful week!

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December 19, 2011

Show, not tell. Again.

I don’t know about you, but I find that dictum Show, don’t tell the thorniest piece of advice about writing. It is so hard to get right. Naturally, when I started to write, I did a lot of telling. Then I got the idea that you should put things in scenes. Great! I thought in my naivete. I’ve got that nailed. Then my novel kept getting rejected by agents, but they didn’t have time to tell me why. I took a writing course at the beginning of this year, and found out that tells were ingrown into my prose style like a bad case of kudzu. So I’ve been trying to weed them out. Yesterday, I read a wonderful piece of advice about showing and telling that I hope (maybe) will finally put the whole issue to rest. (For those of you who want to look it up, you will find it in DESCRIPTION AND SETTING by Ron Rozelle, pp. 66-72.) Compare the following:

The city suffered significant damage in the blast.

The smell of death was a little fainter than the day before, but the places where the houses had collapsed into tile-covered heaps stank vilely and were covered with great, black swarms of flies.

The first sentence is clearly a tell, the sort of thing you would read in a newspaper.
The second is far more descriptive, the sort of thing you would find in a novel. Notice that the author of the second piece never tells you that the city suffered significant damage in the blast. He or she conveys this but the use of telling descriptions. Notice that I used the word telling, because (of course) the second piece is full of tells. How could it not be? But the tells pull the reader in because the content of the descriptions are powerful and they have been word-smithed by a careful choice of words.

The takeaway message?

Do not make anything you write come off as a report.
Choose to show more often than you tell.
Remember that you will have to tell sometimes, because your novel is going to be very clunky and long if you don’t have some narrative summary.
When you use tells, draw the reader in by using emotionally powerful descriptions, then seduce them by using beautifully crafted prose.

Image: British Pathe

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Tagged as narrative summary, Shows vs. Tells, the uses of narrative summary, word choice, word-smithing

December 5, 2011

Tips from the Internet: How to create a ROUNDED character, and how to grab your reader’s emotions

Here are a couple of things I found on the internet:

From Terrible Minds: The most important thing you can do is make your reader FEEL something. To do that you must be

An excellent liar.
Someone who is at least mildly disturbed.
Capable of thinking of profound evils and delirious virtues in equal measure.
Willing to commit acts of overwhelming cruelty to invisible, non-existent people.
Someone who had lots of imaginary friends as a child. And possibly as an adult.

To read more, click on this link: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/02/09/storyteller-as-puppetmaster/ FYI Chuck Wendig (who runs this site) had good advice, but a somewhat foul-mouthed. So be warned.

From Writer’s Digest: How do you create a well-rounded character? Vary the status of that character from scene to scene. You will find that your character reacts differently, and becomes more interesting in the process. To read more, click on this link: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/how-to-raise-your-characters-above-the-status-quo

Do you have any tips you found on the internet you’d like to share? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a wonderful week!

Image is taken from artsalive.lskysd.ca

This piece first appeared in the September newsletter. If you would like to read more such tips, or hear about how my progress on THWARTED QUEEN is going, please sign up for the newsletter by clicking on the appropriate link to the right.

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Tagged as craft tips, grabbing reader's emotions, Monday tips, rounded characters

November 28, 2011

Monday Tips: How to write without getting self-conscious and giving yourself a nasty case of writer’s block

Word choice.

It is so important to us as writers to use words and to use them well. But how to you do that without getting horribly self-conscious and giving yourself a nice case of writer’s block?

What you shouldn’t do, is read your own work as if you were reading Chekhov. Or Nabokov. Or Hemingway.

Why do I say that?

Because if I did that, I’d become so intimidated and self-conscious I would freeze up.

I think that craft or technique has to be practiced away from the work in progress. It’s like doing Sevcik exercises for the violinist, or Czerny exercises for the pianist. You should start your practice (or daily writing stint) with craft exercises. Buy yourself a big dictionary and hunt for words. Pick up a grammar book and try some exercises for 5 minutes. Do a daily (or almost daily) writing prompt. Sit in your chair and analyze your writing. What should you practice next? Words? Sentences? Paragraphs? Grammar? Then put that aside and get down to your WIP.

But before you start, imagine. Imagine that you are about to have the best time. You are going to be sly, manipulative and teasing. You will say the most outrageous things. You will be ambiguous. And with those thoughts in mind, start writing. Enjoy yourself. Let it flow. Then wait at least 24 hours before you put on your editor’s hat and analyze.

Do you have any tips on writing craft that you’d like to share? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a wonderful week!

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Tagged as becoming intimidated, becoming self-conscious, how to enjoy your work, word choice, writer's block

November 21, 2011

Monday Tips: Force Yourself to Make Choices

My tip for today on organizing your time is: force yourself to make choices

Take a deep breath, tell yourself that you deserve to enjoy the hard work you do, and this means that you really CAN’T do everything. Here is another tip.

BEFORE you do anything (by ‘anything’ I mean sitting down at your desk and getting caught up in the frazzle of life before you’ve had a chance to gasp), take ten or fifteen minutes to think.

Turn off NPR, the television, your cell phones and anything else that might distract you, take out a piece of paper and make your list for the day. Realize that you can’t do everything, and don’t feel bad about it. You’re only human after all, and you don’t want to grow old before your time, suffer a nervous breakdown, or just get into that kind of grumpy tiredness that I fall into all too often when I’m not giving myself enough space.

This was brought home to me earlier this year, when my heart started acting up. The palpitations I’d had for years were getting worse, making me feel dizzy and faint.

“But why can’t I work just as hard as everyone else?” I asked my doctor.

She rolled her eyes.

So slow down. You’ll feel so much better. And so will your spouse, significant other, children and pets.

Do you have any tips on how to manage your time that you’d like to share? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving!

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Tagged as coping with stress, how to enjoy your work, Making choices, relaxing while writing

November 7, 2011

Monday Tips: Use your cognitive system to improve your prose style

Today, I thought I would pass on a tip for enriching your prose style.

Pick about 10 novels that you really love, settle down into a comfy nook and find 2 pages in these novels of really sparkling prose. Get out a notebook and copy these pages BY HAND. (Typing it into your computer is NOT allowed.)

Now why do I say that?

Because the whole point of this exercise is to get you to absorb high quality prose into your writing, without making your prose sound like a pale imitation of someone else’s. That’s why you’re only allowed 2 pages per novel. Did I mention that each novel has to be by a different author?

The point of copying it out by hand, rather than typing, is because you want to allow your cognitive system to engage with the material. Putting on my cognitive science hat, I can tell you that although the cognitive system (the one to do with thinking, decision-making and memory) is very smart, it is also very SLOW.

Handwriting, slows down the rate of input into your mind, meaning that the cognitive system has a chance to grasp it. Whereas, if you type, your fingers will be going too fast for the cognitive system to really apprehend the words.

And that is the whole point of this exercise, to get the cognitive system to absorb each prose style so that it will trickle down and make itself felt in your prose style.

Give it a try, and let me know what you think.

As always, feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a great week!

This piece first appeared in the August newsletter. If you would like to read more such tips, or hear about how my progress on THWARTED QUEEN is going, please sign up for the newsletter by clicking on the appropriate link to the right.

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Tagged as cognitive system, copying by hand, improving prose style, typing

October 24, 2011

2 tricks to keep online reading doable, plus 11 tips to make editing easier

Here are a couple of things I picked up by trolling through the internet:

From Jane Friedman’s, 2 TRICKS TO KEEP YOUR ONLINE READING MANAGEABLE. Jane uses Google Reader and its PostRank extension to do this.

From Publetariat’s 11 THINGS TO MAKE EDITING YOUR NOVEL EASIER. This blog lists 11 resources gathered from various bloggers on the web. To read more, click on this link: http://www.publetariat.com/write/11-resources-make-editing-your-novel-easier

Do you have any tips you’ve found on the internet? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a great week!

This piece first appeared in the July newsletter. If you would like to read more such tips, or hear about how my progress on THWARTED QUEEN is going, please sign up for the newsletter by clicking on the appropriate link to the right.

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Tagged as editing your novel, helpful tips and tricks, Managing online reading

October 17, 2011

Finding the right word: Use a Word Trap

Do you ever have that stuck feeling, when you’re trying to write and you just can’t find the right word?

Or you think that everything you write sounds clichéd?

Here is a tip I got from THE WRITER’S PORTABLE MENTOR by Priscilla Long: Buy a really good dictionary, and a blank notebook, and fill it with juicy words. You should try to do this for a short period of time (less than 15 minutes) every day.

Next, make yourself a word trap, a list of words and phrases for the piece you are working on. Open your notebook, write the numbers 1 to 25 down the left-hand side, and put 2 or 3 words and phrases on each line.

Here is an example that Priscilla Long did for a piece she wrote called COMPOSITION IN YELLOW:

yellow, pull, pillowcase
yearning, urine, yams
“yellow peril”, pearls, pee
sulfur turmeric, yellow toad
pear, peach, yellow pansy

As you can see, what is important about ALL of these words is that they are CONCRETE words that are perceived through the senses, rather than abstract notions that we think about.

Do you have any craft tips you’d like to share? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a great week!

Image: blog.foundationstone.org

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September 26, 2011

How to achieve the balance between narrative and dialogue

I was watching to a webinar recently, given by agent Scott Eagan of Greyhaus Literary Agency (it accepts romance, and women’s fiction), and I heard something that I thought I would pass along.

He was talking about the balance of narrative and dialogue, and talked about how he was once reading a novel, and he felt as if he was learning an enormous amount, but the information was presented so transparently he hardly notice it.

How did the author do it?

She wedged little pieces of information into the dialogue, like a sandwich. So there was dialogue, then the info dump, then dialogue.

I’m going to try out this technique myself, but thought I would pass it along to all of you.

Do you have any craft tips you’d like to share? Feel free to drop a comment in the box below.

Have a great week!

This piece first appeared in the June newsletter. If you would like to read more such tips, or hear about how my progress on THWARTED QUEEN is going, please sign up for the newsletter by clicking on the appropriate link to the right.

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Tagged as Greyhaus Literary Agency, Scott Eagan, webinar, Writers Digest

May 23, 2011

Monday’s Challenge: Write an atmospheric opening in 150 words or less

Today, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to challenge all of my readers to write an atmospheric opening in 150 words or less. Feel free to post your entries in the comments box below. If that doesn’t sound like fun, or you’re simply too busy, feel free to critique the stab I made below. I call my morsel (which comes in at 138 words) FOOTSTEPS.

Footsteps. Hard, metallic, the heel striking the pavement, they approached.

Dusk settled along the estuary. He stood there regarding the grey water. A breeze stroked his curls. A black cloud came up and over, moving inexorably towards him. Rain stung his cheeks. It passed and went east.

The footsteps stopped.

He turned.

“Evening,” a voice said.

He was hard to make out from under the hood of his cloak. Except for the long nose and full lips.

“Hi.”

“D’you live around here?”

“What’s it to you?”

He shrugged and turned to sea. “Don’t know these parts.”

“I’m visiting.”

“Me too. I’m looking for a pub. The Queen’s Arms.”

“Town’s over there.”

“Right.” He ambled off.

A wind shook the leaves. He lit a cigarette. Where had he seen him before? And why was he dressed in a cloak? [138 words]

I invite you to leave your atmospheric opening or critiques in the comments box. You have until Sunday Midnight EST to post something.

Have a wonderful week!

–Cynthia Haggard writes historical novels. She has two completed manuscripts that will be published in the coming year. THWARTED QUEEN is a portrait of a woman trapped by power, a marriage undone by betrayal, and a King brought down by fear.FAMILY SPLINTERS is a novel about identity, forbidden love and family secrets. For more on her creative writing, go to spunstories. (c) 2011. All rights reserved.