Kaye Dacus's Blog, page 49

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Les Edgerton on Finding (and Using) YOUR Voice

Excerpt from Finding Your Voice by Les Edgerton: There’s a place waiting for you in Readerland. Editors are out there now, poised with checkbook in hand, hoping that today is the day they open a manuscript and a real, live person begins speaking from the page to them. A new, unique person with a voice […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Ansen Dibell on Making Sure Something Happens

Excerpt from Plot by Ansen Dibell: Make Sure the Reader Knows Something’s Happening, and Going to Happen There’s another compensation that needs mentioning. Make sure none of your little, simple scenes is static. End them, subtly or obviously, on cliff-hangers. Show something is slipping, something is going wrong, and something is going to happen very […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Alicia Rasley on Point of View

Excerpt from The Power of Point of View by Alicia Rasley: What POV Can Do for Your Story In order to maximize the impact POV has on your readers, an understanding of its potential is essential. The choices you make regarding POV have the power to do the following: 1. Give readers the vicarious experience […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Orson Scott Card on Your Contract with the Reader

Excerpt from Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card: Whenever you tell a story, you make an implicit contract with the reader. Within the first few paragraphs or pages, you tell the reader implicitly what kind of story this is going to be; the reader then knows what to expect, and holds the thread of […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: William Noble on Subtlety and Misdirection

Excerpt from Conflict, Action & Suspense by William Noble: We speak of subtlety and misdirection because the story moves with veils and whisps and bare outlines, and there’s no attempt to ring a bell or blow a whistle so the reader’s attention can be lassoed like a runaway calf. What this type of writing requires […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Tom Chiarella on Silence

Excerpt from Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella: There are moments when silence comes naturally to a character or scene. In these cases, silence seems the natural answer, an extension of the exchange between two people. . . . There are moments when nothing can be said. Many things might stand behind this sort of silence. […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Eric and Ann Maisel on Fiction as Experimental Psychology

Excerpt from What Would Your Character Do?: Personality Quizzes for Analyzing Your Characters by Eric and Ann Maisel: A writer gets inside his sleepless, blue character and discovers that she is blue because she has contrived a loveless marriage that made sense from one point of view, the security angle, but was a horrible mistake […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Nancy Kress on Taking a Wrong (Story) Turn

Excerpt from Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress: Characters who overreact indicate that the situation itself isn’t interesting enough, so you’re trying to rev up the excitement level with histrionics. Out-of-character actions indicate either that your plot is wrong for these people or these people are the wrong ones to be inhabiting your plot. […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Jordan Rosenfeld on Character-Related Plot Threads

Excerpt from Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time by Jordan E. Rosenfeld At the same time as you establish that your protagonist is a smack-talking hooligan with seductive eyes and a mop of brown curls, or a lonely librarian who reads mystery novels and winds up investigating an actual […]

Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Donald Maass on Humor in Fiction

Excerpt from Chapter 7, “Hyperreality,” in The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass It’s one thing to crack a joke or be occasionally witty; it’s another thing altogether to be funny for four hundred pages. But that is what it takes. Humor is cumulative. Laughter builds. Have you ever enjoyed a comedian’s routine? When do […]