Janice Hardy's Blog, page 45
June 17, 2020
5 Ways to Add Internal Conflict to Your Scenes
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_HardyStrengthening the internal conflict in a scene can lead to a deeper connection with your reader.
Back in my “still working out this writing thing” days, I didn’t even know what internal conflict was. I had a vague sense that conflict was the plot, and that it involved grand battles and exciting fight scenes (it didn’t, by the way). I thought that in order to write an exciting novel, I needed to pack it full of exciting action.
Since I’m a plot-focused writer, this misconception fit my writing style well and kept me struggling to understand conflict longer than I should have.
Eventually I figured it out and my novels improved. And once I knew what skill I lacked, I focused on developing that skill—in this case, conflict in general, internal conflict in particular. This “skill cycle” was also part of my process, where I’d hit a technical wall in my writing and then shift to learning how to handle it.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 16, 2020
Harsh Does Not Equal Honest: Pick Your Beta Readers Carefully
By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello Part of The Writer's Life Series
JH: Feedback doesn't have to be mean to be useful. Dario Ciriello shares thoughts on dealing with beta readers, tough crits, and the struggles of new authors just trying to get help.
I’ve seen more than one new author crushed by tactless or even downright mean feedback from beta readers, and I don’t like it. So a couple of weeks ago, I tweeted the following as a simple PSA:
Too many writers upset by overly harsh feedback from betas. PICK YOUR BETAS CAREFULLY. They should be people you know well, who get your genre, whom you trust, and who are experienced, secure writers. Don't just let anyone read your draft.Surprisingly, this got pushback from a few people who insisted they wanted and welcomed harsh feedback, didn’t want to be coddled, didn’t want to use people they knew as betas because they wouldn’t give honest feedback, wanted people who didn’t read their genre because that would let them appeal to a wider audience, and yada yada.
Wrong.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 15, 2020
Super Charge Your Scenes: A 5-Day Writing Challenge
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_HardyIntroducing Supercharge Your Scene
A few weeks ago, I was interview by J. Thorn for his Writers, Ink Podcast. We got to chatting afterward, and he told me about a new site and program he was launching in June, which would begin with a free 5-day writing challenge on super charging your scenes. The challenge starts today, and it like a little mini-at-home-workshop.
Here are the details...
Have you ever had this thought? “This scene isn’t good enough. But I don’t know how to improve it.”
Maybe you shrugged and moved on to the next chapter. Something about that scene you just wrote is niggling at you, but you don’t know what to do about it.
Or maybe you’ve tried revising it…but something is still off.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 13, 2020
WIP Diagnostic: Is This Working? A Closer Look at a Middle Grade Query
Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_HardyWIP Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and we diagnose it on the site. It’s part critique, part example, and designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.
If you're interested in submitting to WIP Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines.
Submissions currently in the queue: Three
Please Note: As of today, critique slots are booked through July 4.
This week’s questions:
1. Have I solved the problems of the first draft?
2. I know the current query letter still doesn't give a good sense of how the whole world fits together. To give background: There are no authors. Everyone is a book character (whether they know it or not) and the only thing that exists outside of books is the meta-data library realm (a gigantic ramshackle library dimension that houses all the books of the world, and is policed by warrior monk librarians.) The meta-data library doesn't become a feature until the final act. Does it need to be mentioned in the query letter?
Market/Genre: YA Query
On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 11, 2020
Time to Evaluate Your Planning Process: Change Can Be Good
By Aliza Mann, @AlizaMannAuthorPart of The Writer’s Life Series
JH: Changing your writing process might take trial and error before you get it right. Aliza Mann wraps up her productivity series with tips on evaluating your process changes.
Ever since she was a small child, Aliza Mann loved to tell stories. It started in the backyard of her family’s home in Atlanta, Georgia. There weren’t a lot of children in the neighborhood, so she would spend hours making up fantasy worlds where everything was perfect and everyone was loved. After her parents decided to relocate to Detroit, Michigan, things changed. In her new home, she learned words like recession, layoff and was personally introduced to a world completely opposite of the life she’d known. As hard as life’s lessons can be, she busied herself by reading anything she could get her hands on. In high school, she would fall in love with literature and alas, romance. From the moment she opened the cover of a historical page turner, she found herself hooked. With eyes wide and a smile on her face, she devoured as many novels as she could find and she dreamed that she could write like that too. Maybe. Like most childhood dreams, she soon found that they could be pushed to the side and categorized with a label that read, ‘One day…’
One day finally came, when she found herself laid off from her day job. As things happen, this set back helped to segue her back onto the writing path. She found herself starting a novel which will probably never see the light of day, but gave her more joy than she’d ever though possible. Today, while it’s been some years since her last layoff and she is actively working in the public sector, she balances her love of writing a great story between two pseudo-adult children, a fabulous son-in-law, a granddaughter, and the man of her dreams. A true book nerd, she is almost always reading and for sure, writing the world in a way that shows its true beauty, served with a heaping side of happily ever after.
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | BookBub | Instagram |
Take it away Aliza…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 10, 2020
The Hidden Danger Backstory Poses for Writers (And It’s Not the One You Think)
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy Uncovering backstory isn’t the same as plot, and focusing too much on the story’s past can hurt your novel’s future.
One of the very first outlines for my urban fantasy novel, Blood Ties, focused on revealing the twist and secrets of the novel. It was mostly about how readers were going to learn all the cool things I’d created and less about a character struggling with a problem. Which was a problem, since struggling with problems is what makes a novel a novel.
Weak as that early outline was, writing it was worth it, since it helped me figure out those backstories and secrets. It also made it obvious that I’d outlined a novel that didn’t truly have a plot. Sure, my protagonist had goals and she acted to achieve them and did all the things a good protagonist is supposed to do, but if I’d written the story to that first outline, it would have been terrible.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 9, 2020
3 Best Productivity Apps to Write Faster
By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughtonPart of The Writer's Life Series
JH: Getting more done in less time is something pretty much everyone wants to do these days (and not just writers). Laurence MacNaughton shares three apps that can help you achieve that goal.
When New York Times best-selling author David Weber suffered a terrible accident and broke his wrist into 57 pieces, it might have ended his writing career forever. But instead, he adapted by using software that ended up helping him write faster than ever before.
How is this possible?
Sometimes, changing how you do things can make you more productive than you ever dreamed. There’s a lesson in there for all of us.
Probably every writer alive wants to be faster and more prolific. The sooner you can finish your book, the better. If you want to be a professional writer (or heck, even if you just want to finish your novel this year), you need the right tools for the job.
Here are three free or low-cost productivity apps that can help you write faster and finish sooner.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 6, 2020
WIP Diagnostic: Is This Working? A Closer Look at a Romantic Suspense Opening
Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_HardyWIP Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and we diagnose it on the site. It’s part critique, part example, and designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.
If you're interested in submitting to WIP Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines.
Submissions currently in the queue: Three
Please Note: As of today, critique slots are booked through June 27.
This week’s questions:
1. What writing aspects are most needed to add/delete from this scene? (i.e. More showing, more intriguing issue/problem to start, action, pacing, clearer storyline? etc.)
2. What does/doesn’t work with this scene?
3. Should the stakes be higher for these first 217 words?
Market/Genre: Christian Romantic Suspense
On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 5, 2020
Bulking Up: Fleshing Out a Too-Short Novel
By Janice Hardy, @Janie_HardyWhat can you do when your novel is too short?
Despite writing fantasy (which is known to be looooong), I typically write sparse first drafts. I'm not a fan of heavy description, and only add the bare minimum to my drafts unless nudged by a critique partner to describe more. I even have a beta reader specifically for this, since I know it's a weakness of mine, and a strength of hers.
My first drafts are full of "white rooms" and conversations in sketchy locations (and not the good kind). I always need to do a revision pass that focuses on description to make sure I add all those details in.
Which means my first drafts are almost always too short.
Sparse-draft writers come in many flavors, and while my quirk is description, others might scrimp on stage direction, or action, or even internalization. Whatever their preferences, they wind up with a draft that needs bulking up instead of the typical trimming down most writers endure.
If you're a sparse writer, here are things to do to hit your target word count.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
June 4, 2020
Writing Resources to Help Jump Start Your Writing
By Sherry Howard, @SherLHowardPart of The Writer's Life Series
JH: On days when you can't write, it can help to read the how-to books you've always loved and found helpful. Sherry Howard shares her favorites.
Sherry Howard lives with her children and silly dogs in Middletown, Kentucky. Sherry is the author of the picture book ROCK AND ROLL WOODS, with a starred Kirkus review. Her poems and stories have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies. She also writes for the educational market, with about a dozen books.
Sherry Howard | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Take it away Sherry...
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
