Riley Adams's Blog, page 30

July 2, 2022

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 65,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers. While you're there, check out the Writer's Digest award-winning Hiveword novel organizer.

Have you visited the WKB lately? Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox! Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.

Happy Independence Day to my American blog readers! I'll be taking the next couple of weeks off for a blogging break (aside from posting Twitterific on Sundays). See you back on July 18.

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Published on July 02, 2022 21:01

June 26, 2022

Top 6 Creative Writing Exercises To Sharpen Your Writing Skills

Sticky note with a lightbulb on a bulletin board

by Nicholas Rubright

Writing a work of fiction is often more of a marathon than a sprint, more of a journey than a destination. The following exercises are designed to develop your creative writing skills and help you find your own unique style of writing fiction that fits you like an old glove.

They're not necessarily designed to produce publishable work, but they will help stretch the boundaries of your imagination and make familiar ideas fresh again – even if they're ideas we've seen a thousand times before.

1. Write for 15 Minutes Without Stopping

Writing sprints can help you build up steam and be free from distractions. Just write what flows; don't edit yourself at all. Consider disabling your backspace key.

The point is to put words on the page without the stress of finding the “right” words. You are training yourself to consistently and reliably create new content on command.

Try writing about a character you already know well (such as your teenage self) and see what happens. If you're really stuck, just write questions beginning with “why.”

Fifteen minutes might seem like a long time to write at a breakneck speed, but it will go by surprisingly quickly, and at the end you’ll have up to a page, maybe two, of content.

In my experience not much of what comes from a writing sprint is usable as-is, but it helps me break through the anxiety of tackling a difficult scene and forces me to write something. As for the word salad, I can clean that up later. As they say, you can’t edit what isn’t there.

Keep doing writing sprints until you pick up the thread of the story again. You can always go back later and decide if this is where you want to continue the story after you have some words on the page to work with.

2. Write 3 Versions of the Same Scene

Try looking at the same story from three different points of view (POVs). So often we get locked into one character ‘s perspective and fail to see other interesting possibilities.

I once rewrote the first chapter of a novel set in the 1910s and set it 60 years later. A dusty Oklahoma main street became the men’s room at Studio 54. The produce the protagonist was trying to sell became … well, it was the ’70s and they were in a nightclub restroom, so you can use your imagination.

The point is that it completely blew the doors off of what was possible for the story, and it took the narrative to places I never would have imagined.

I abandoned my time-shifted setting after that chapter and traveled back to 1912, but a screenwriter who did this challenge with me went ahead and finished a feature-length screenplay of his story set in the decade of bell bottoms and disco, even though his original story was set in ancient Rome!

Write down everything, no matter how crazy it seems. You never know when a critical difference to a scene will take hold of your imagination and run away with your story – and take you with it.

3. Have a Conversation About Feelings Without Mentioning Feelings

It’s very common to read something like this in a story: “‘It was so hard being away from home,’ she said, her voice cracking with sadness.”

If someone tells the reader that their character’s voice is cracking with sadness after saying, “It was so hard being away from home,” it can leave little anticipation for the reader.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

We already know that because of the dialogue tag. Instead, try writing down everything that happens leading up to an emotional moment or reaction without using any qualifiers to tip off the reader that someone's about to feel something. Think of all the adjectives you would use if you were describing what just happened, and then the feelings that would follow.

For example: “‘I don't know if I can do this anymore,’ she said. Her face was pale and gaunt from lack of sleep. He reached forward, squeezing her hand tightly … .”

You know he's about to say something reassuring because he squeezes her hand before speaking, even though there's no dialogue tag saying so. Also you see two characters look at each other and it's clear what is about to happen next because of an action they both share.

There was a time in my writing life when I leaned heavily on dialogue tags. I added an adverb to every single one (I know, cringe). I made sure every detail in my mental picture of the scene was right there on the page. But when you do that, you aren’t trusting your readers.

Side note on dialogue tags: “said” is fine 99% of the time, if you even need dialogue tags at all. Sometimes it’s obvious who is speaking, and if something is obvious, you should never spell it out.

Your audience is smart, at least smarter than you think they are, and they don’t need the emotions of your characters or the way they say their lines spelled out for them.

Incorporate figurative language such as metaphors or similes in your descriptions of action to convey feeling without hitting it on the nose. Used correctly, they can allow you to skip dialogue or narration while creating vivid images in your readers’ minds.

4. Analyze Your Favorite Fiction Story and Character

Choose one of your favorite movies or television shows that has inspired or informed your writing in some way, or consider a banned book that brings up controversial themes and characters.

Think about what makes this piece of fiction so great and summarize why, maybe by exploring its themes, highlighting interesting characters, or discussing how effective its dialogue is.

Writing about other works can help us improve our own work because we often recognize things that we love in the writing of others, and this allows us to perhaps replicate that in our own writing.

Think about your favorite character from any story you have read or watched. If it's a movie or TV show, what is their most important line?

Write the dialogue down, but be sure to explain why you find this line so powerful, memorable, or essential. This exercise can help you write stronger dialogue by giving you an example of how to use potent, concise language effectively.

There is a lot to learn from popular media (who doesn’t love Tony Stark’s snark or Schwarzenegger’s one-liners?). But the best place to turn for help in this department is the greats.

Hemingway, of course, was the master of doing much with few words, but grab a copy of David Mamet’s play Glengarry Glen Ross. I read that play almost 15 years ago, and it’s forever changed the way I write dialogue.

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Characters begin sentences then trail off. They get interrupted and never get back to what they were saying. They go on tangents.

In other words, they speak like we do. Like real people.

Transcribe some lines from Ricky Roma or James Lingk, and it may inspire you to approach dialogue in a completely different way.

5. Draw a Picture and Describe It

This exercise forces you to step away from your writing for a second. By describing a picture you’ve drawn, you’re making yourself come up with new ideas and keep building on them.

Set a word count for yourself. Start with 500 words and force yourself to keep finding new aspects of the picture to write about. When you’re finished, you should have about a page of text.

Now comes the fun part.

Take that wordcount and cut it in two. Edit down what you just wrote until it is 250 words. This will likely be easy since you probably padded the word count a bit in the first round.

Now cut it in half again. Trim your half-page down to 125 words without losing any of the important details. Want to guess what comes next? Trim it down again to 75 words.

What you’re left with is a tight, concise version of that original 500 words of description, and you’ve discovered that much of it was unnecessary.

This is a riff on an exercise I learned from a journalism professor back in the days when newspaper ink and the cost of paper had to be considered. But according to Shakespeare, brevity is the soul of wit. And since tight writing is usually strong writing, brevity is also key to great description.

6. Rewrite the Ending of a Book

This exercise allows you to focus on dialogue and plot, while also drawing on your knowledge of the original work. To start this exercise off, pick any book you enjoy and re-write its final chapter.

You can either modify the ending to make it more satisfying or come up with an entirely new ending. Or take well-known characters from literature and write an alternate history where their outcome is completely different.

Maybe Voldemort beats Harry, or Pennywise gets the best of those meddling kids. Maybe the House of Usher doesn’t fall. Maybe Rhett Butler cares after all.

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There’s a reason why fanfiction is so popular. You can unmoor your imagination from the restraints of what “really happened” and take your favorite characters on wild new adventures.

But it isn’t just about relishing in fandom. These established scenes and characters are a great platform for you to build on. And respectfully standing on your favorite author’s shoulders is a great way to learn from them. By emulating their style, you can learn their tricks and absorb some of their skill.

The Last Word

Practicing with these exercises can help you improve your creative writing skills. But don’t stop there! Create a schedule and stick to it as you work through these and even more exercises – and don’t forget to actually write.

These are supposed to help you get better at writing, not take the place of it. Don’t let your draft molder while you spend all your time on writing exercises. Get after it!

But just to get the creative juices flowing, ask yourself now: How would your WIP change if it were set in the 1970s? Or if it’s already set in the ’70s, how would it change if it were set today?

Author Bio:

Nicholas Rubright is a digital marketing specialist and expert writer at Writer. In his free time, Nicholas enjoys playing guitar, writing music, and building cool things on the internet.

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Published on June 26, 2022 21:01

June 25, 2022

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

The Top Writing Links From Last Week Are On Twitterific:
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Published on June 25, 2022 21:01

June 19, 2022

Yet Another Use for Outlines

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I promise I'm not trying to drag any writers over to the dark side with me. :) I was quite anti-outline myself at the start of my writing career. I loved making my books up as I went along. Somehow it seemed a lot more creative and fun to me. Sadly, my non-outlining came to an ignominious end when I ran against a major plot hole while under a tight deadline with Penguin-Random House.

Since then, I've learned to spend a couple of weeks outlining books. I even developed my own template to use with my cozies to help keep myself on track. I've reluctantly become converted to an outliner.

I had to share in a quick post that my outline helped me out yet again. Unfortunately, outlines just prove too darn useful.

I've already mentioned that they're good as cheat-sheets when you're speaking to a book club about a book you wrote years ago.

And I just recently acknowledged that they're good for elaborating in a meaningful way when you're needing to add to your word count.

Commenters on the post chimed in that they were useful as synopses and to help realize the essence of the story and create back cover copy.

And now here's another use for them–discovering both large and small plot and story issues before writing the story.

I probably should have realized outlines would be good for that reason. After all, planning a book in advance to avoid plot holes was the entire reason I started outlining to begin with. But for some reason, I've thought of outlines mainly as roadmaps . . . giving me direction as I stumbled through my draft.

Now I realize more of the scope of how they can offer me assistance. With my outlines, I can see big problems with my story: perhaps the sleuth nailed a suspect without enough clues or evidence.

But I can also spot smaller problems with the story: two characters with names similar enough to be confusing. Or the fact that there's not enough set-up before a murder.

So I have to reluctantly concede that my outlining continues to be of service to me. :)

How about you? Are you an outliner/reluctant outliner? What other writing tips do you have to share?

Another Use for Outlines: Eliminating Large and Smaller Plot Issues:
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Published on June 19, 2022 21:01

June 18, 2022

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

The Top Writing Links From Last Week Are On Twitterific:
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Published on June 18, 2022 21:01

June 12, 2022

A Call to Arms Against Banned Books

by Jodé Millman, @worldseats

As a lawyer, who is also a writer and creator of The Writer’s Law School, I sometimes believe my superpower lies in spotlighting legal issues that simmer beneath the surface. For instance, underneath the proliferation of book banning sweeping throughout the country is the threat to one of the most esteemed amendments of the U.S. Constitution—the First Amendment. As a brief reminder, the First Amendment guarantees the freedoms of religion, expression, assembly and the right to petition.

You know the situation is growing desperate when classic novels like “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “The Handmaiden’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, “The Bluest Eyes” by Toni Morrison, “Maus” by Art Spiegelman, “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Neshi Coates and “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas are under attack. Add to that list “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”

The question is whether school districts can legally remove these masterpieces from their libraries? The answer is not as clear as the school administrations would like to believe. In 1982, the Supreme Court decided in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No.26 vs. Pico (457 U.S. 853) that the First Amendment imposes limitations on a school board’s exercising its discretion in removing books from junior and high school libraries. Local school boards may not remove books simply because they dislike the ideas contained within those books, nor can they seek by their removal to prescribe what shall be the governing positions in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion. In other words, the school board cannot censor political or social ideas contained with those books.

Contrary to the forty-year constitutional precedent, the recent trend in some parts of the country has been to ban books based on sexual and racial identity. In states like Oklahoma, they introduced a bill in the State Senate seeking to prohibit public school libraries from stocking books that discuss sexual identity, sexual activity or gender identity. Of course, we are all aware of Florida’s controversial “Parental Rights in Education Act” aka “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which limits what classrooms can teach about sexual orientation and gender identity. Wyoming, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, and Mississippi appear poised to jump on the censorship bandwagon.

What does this mean for writers? Are we to stifle our creative juices and not tell the stories we want to tell or write about the characters we desire to explore because we are afraid of being banned? What about the chilling effect censorship has on the audience? Should readers be shamed because of who they are; should they be barred from reading about people who represent their communities?

My new crime thriller, HOOKER AVENUE, involves two female protagonists, a cop and an attorney, who are thrust into the path of a serial killer when the attorney saves a mysterious woman from drowning. Jessie Martin is a single mom attorney, whose estranged friend, bi-racial Detective Ebony Jones, is investigating a series of cold cases involving missing prostitutes. The near-drowning victim, Lissie Sexton, is a young, unwed mother, sex worker and addict who has lost custody of her son to her parents. Ebony believes that Lissie is the key to unlocking the serial vanishings, while Jessie faces professional ethical dilemmas as she navigates whether to protect her client, Lissie, or assist Ebony in her investigation.

Viewed through the lens of racial discrimination and conservative sexual attitudes, HOOKER AVENUE could be ripe for banning. It checks all the boxes: unwed mothers, prostitution, drug addiction, serial killings, a Jewish protagonist and a bi-racial protagonist. If you consider your own work through this distorted perception, it’s easy to see how a less diverse, open mind can twist your story to fit their profile for banning.

If “The 1619 Project,” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a bestseller about slavery in America, can become the most targeted book in America, then it is easy to imagine that we can all suffer such a fate.

According to a recent Harvard University study, students spend twenty percent of their time in school. The content of school time should reflect the rest of their world, not someone else’s political agenda. Children should be as free to engage in uncensored reading as they do in engaging in social media and social activities. As writers, parents, and readers, we have an obligation to protect our First Amendment rights for future generations. The books our children read should not be weaponized or become political footballs. We learn about ourselves through what we read, and a more diverse, inclusive reading list encourages a more educated, equitable, and inclusive society.

What action can writers take? We should not wait until the battle has advanced to the point of no return, limiting our student’s rights to free access to books and knowledge. Report censorship to the American Library Association. They are strong advocates for protecting books from censorship, maintain a database of incidents and challenged materials (330 reported last fall), and supply librarians with materials necessary to address censorship issues. For more information, visit https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks.

The Authors Guild is another resource for advocacy on free speech, by encouraging a National Letter-Writing Campaign to school boards, lawmakers and newspapers, and maintaining the Freedom of Expression watch list. They recently launched a Banned Books Club, a #unitedagainstbannedbooks campaign, and www.unitedagainstbannedbooks.org. For more information on combating censorship, visit www.authorsguild.org.

As you can tell, this issue disturbs both the lawyer and the writer inside me. Book banning is an attack on our livelihood and our sensibilities. I hope this essay will energize you to take action on this attack on the First Amendment, along with other recent attempts to thwart our constitutional rights and case precedents. If we are told what we can’t read, or told what we can’t do with our bodies, then Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and Atwood’s “The Handmaiden’s Tale” have transmuted from fiction to reality.

You may not have my legal superpower, but together as writers, we possess the power to protect our constitutional rights.

Photo by Evangeline Gala (www.evangelinegala.com)

Jodé Millman is the acclaimed author of THE MIDNIGHT CALL, which won the Independent Press, American Fiction, and Independent Publisher Bronze IPPY Awards for Legal Thriller. Her new thriller, HOOKER AVENUE is available now. She’s an attorney, a reviewer for Booktrib.com, and the host/producer of The Backstage with the Bardavon podcast. She has created and presented The Writer’s Law School to international writer’s and arts organizations, trade groups and libraries. Discover more about Jodé, her work and sign up for her newsletter at www.jodemillman.com.

Tips for Authors for Handling Censorship (by @worldseats ):
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Published on June 12, 2022 21:01

June 11, 2022

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

The Top Writing Links From Last Week Are On Twitterific:
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Published on June 11, 2022 21:01

June 5, 2022

Who We’re Writing For

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Unless you're writing a memoir or a family history, chances are that you're not writing for your family. Nor, unless your friends are eager readers of your genre, your friends.

I read a lot of blog posts, though, where writers lament the lack of support they're receiving from their family members. The support they're often looking for is for family to buy and read their books.

Although I don't necessarily think family should feel obligated to purchase a writer's books, it's certainly one way to support a writer. There are many, many more. Family members can share a writer's social media posts, spread the news about a book release among friends, or even persuade libraries or bookshops to hold a book signing. They can brag about you to others. Most importantly, for writers who have young children or who might be caregivers to others, family and friends can help provide time for the writer to write, work on business tasks, or promote online.

My (grown) children will sometimes ruefully tell me that their friends give them a hard time for not reading my books. My answer is always, “But I didn't write them for you. I dedicated some books to you, but I didn't write them with you in mind.” And I didn't write them for my husband, mother, or any other family members. I have a good grasp on who my readers are and they're always very much my target audience when I'm writing.

I was reminded of this recently when visiting with my mother's tax attorney. He's a nice guy and asked if he could purchase one of my books. He thought his granddaughter might like it. I say what I usually say when someone I know asks to read my books–that they should give it a try at the library first. If they like that one, there are about fifty others. :) He reiterated that he'd like to purchase one, so I sent him a copy in the mail.

Some time later I spoke with him on the phone, regarding my mother's taxes. At the end of the conversation, he said he'd read my book and was enjoying it, but didn't think his granddaughter was quite ready for it.

I totally agreed. That's because, despite the fact that cozy mysteries have no explicit gore, profanity, or adult material, they do have murders.

I learned that he'd been a bit misled by the cover design for my books. An avid cozy mystery reader would immediately recognize the hallmarks of a cozy…the cat on the cover, the hint of danger (in this case, a blood-splatter on a tombstone). The cartoonish elements indicating there might be humor between the covers.

I never want to turn away potential readers, of course. I'd like to think that I've persuaded several mystery readers to give cozies a go…some of them are folks I know. But my books aren't a good fit for every reader. And I'd never have my feelings hurt if friends and family didn't read my books…or even if they did and didn't like them. Because I have a good lock on my audience and who I'm writing for.

As always, this isn't one size fits all advice, as most advice isn't. If you're not getting any support as a writer, suggest that your family or friends help you out in other ways. And remember that, ultimately, you're writing for other people. The readers who chose your books because of your genre and the singular spin you give it. And, most importantly, you're writing for yourself.

How does your writing life mix with your family and friends?

Who Are You Writing For?
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Published on June 05, 2022 21:01