You are reading along, a scene ends a new one begins and... Wait... Where am I? Who am I with? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I'm lost... Have you ever had this experience? If so, that writer was guilty of not setting the scene in their story or as I sometimes call it, not...
Beats in Fiction Writing? Honestly, beats isn't a term I use a lot, but it is a term I hear a lot, so I thought it would be good to define what beats in fiction are and why they matter. Beats in Fiction Writing Defined According to Sandra Scofield in her book, The...
Transition words and phrases. As writers, we spend a lot of time talking about plot, character, setting, and description. We learn how to put all of those together into scenes and how to show character motivation with sequel. But then when it comes time to stitch it...
One of the writing tips you've most likely heard is probably to avoid clichés. This writing tip is so widely shared that it has almost become a cliché itself. So you know that clichés in creative writing should be avoided like the plague. But so often a cliché is the...
Want to overcome writer's block? That's right. Care LESS. Trying for perfection when writing your first draft is the best way ever to stop your writing cold. "Should she hold a rose or a daisy?" "What is the significance of each?" "What if her brother was really her...
Flashbacks are defined as a scene or piece of a scene from a past time that is interjected into an ongoing story. Flashbacks in fiction are usually presented as a memory of the point of view character, and many writers seem quite fond of adding them to their books....
How to end a chapter? What's the big deal? When everything is all tied up, you move on, right? No. In fact, everything shouldn't be "all tied up" until the very end. In the body of your story, there should never be a place where everything is 100% good. Sure, the...
When I first started writing, I'd never heard of motivation reaction units (MRU). What I did know, though, was sometimes things just didn't seem to flow. Sections of prose would feel awkward and just not right. So I would re-read and re-word until they did. Even after...
Procrastination... Life... so many things get in the way of actually finishing that book that you've been writing for what? Years? Ages? What can you do to get around whatever blocks are your path and finally just finish writing a book? 1. Be honest about why you...
