Before you think I’m starting the New Year with a toast to the soldiers of many an ancient war, let’s reflect for a minute on our antecedents. Grammatical antecedents, that is. You know: the identifying name or noun to which a pronoun refers. John petted his dog. Whose dog? John’s, but fortunately you don’t have to say John petted John’s dog, because the proximity and word order tells you that his is a reference to John. Simple and straightforward. No … Read More »

The world you create for your characters is bound to be full of color—it’s everywhere you and your character(s) look. Sight is a powerful sense, so you want to make the most of it. As a writer, the tendency might lean toward using your favorite color, simply naming what your character sees (the green tree), and move on with the rest of the story’s narrative. Hang on! Don’t let the power of color fade away into thin air! Let’s explore … Read More »

Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” We’re rightly admonished not to use adverbs. But what about adjectives? I’d argue that adjectives are also there in the mix that makes up the road to hell. In fact, Mark Twain wrote to student D. W. Bowser (3/20/1880) “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will … Read More »

Nobody likes to peer through a glass darkly—it’s too hard to see. Why not just look directly at the scene rather than at its reflection, which is pale and distorted? (Unless you’re looking at an eclipse, of course.) Filter Not It’s just as hard to get the full impact of an emotional scene in a novel if the author dims everything through a series of filter words. You know what I mean: felt, seemed, heard, saw, and their kin. Needless … Read More »

You’ve decided. Your fiction story will become a series. The decision could have been made when you realized your characters have more to say than one book can hold, or you may have decided at the outset that a series is the best way forward. Either way, here are a few hints and suggestions to help make that series a successful one. Timeline Structuring It’s logical to think that books in a series continue where the last one left off, … Read More »

In reading novels as in attending parties, nobody wants to sit next to a bore. It’s easy to say what constitutes a social bore: she hogs the conversation, talks about herself, burrows into a one narrow topic that doesn’t interest you. What marks out a boring book? I had a recent opportunity to think about this when a friend asked me to read his manuscript and give him some feedback. The overarching problem that jumped out at me seemed worth … Read More »