Janice Hardy's Blog, page 47

Writing a Page-Turner: Turning Points: Three Act Structure for Novelists

By Kris Bock, @Kris_Bock

Part of the How They Do It Series
JH: Structure is a great tool to help writers develop and write their novels. Kris Bock shares thoughts on the value of turning points in a page turner. 
Chris Eboch is the author of over 60 books for children, including nonfiction and fiction, early reader through teen. Her writing craft books include  You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers , and  Advanced Plotting .

Her novels for ages nine and up include  The Eyes of Pharaoh , a mystery in ancient Egypt;  The Well of Sacrifice , a Mayan adventure;  The Genie’s Gift , a middle eastern fantasy; and the Haunted series, about kids who travel with a ghost hunter TV show, which starts with  The Ghost on the Stairs .

Chris Eboch Website | Blog | Goodreads 
Chris also writes for adults as Kris Bock. Her Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series features the employees and customers at a cat café. Watch as they fall in love with each other and shelter cats. Get a free 10,000-word story set in the world of the Furrever Friends cat café when you sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter. You’ll also get a printable copy of the recipes mentioned in the cat café novels.

Kris also writes romantic suspense set in the Southwestern U.S. If you love Mary Stewart or Barbara Michaels, try Kris Bock’s stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue in the Southwest.

Kris Bock Website | Blog | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | Sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter 
Take it away Kris...
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

What's Their Story? Discovering the Front Story of Your Non-Point of View Characters

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

We often spend a lot of time on the backstories of our characters, but how often do we consider their front stories?   

Non-point of view characters don't get nearly enough love and attention as point of view characters. It's understandable, because they're not the ones driving the plot or charming the readers, so our focus is on more critical elements of the novels.

But those characters and their lives have the potential to create conflict and deepen our stories. How they feel, what their goals are, what they want from life, can all affect what the protagonist is trying to do or trying to avoid.

Not knowing how they fit into the world and the story is missing a huge opportunity. At some point, you really want to ask:

What is this character's front story?  

Odds are this isn't a term you've heard before, and I think I'm the only one who uses it. But it's a useful tool for determining how a non-point of view character fits into the story.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Organizing the Chaos: 5 Revision Tips for Pantsers

By Orly Konig, @OrlyKonig

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Revising a novel takes many forms, and pantsers have a different approach. Orly Konig shares tips on revising as a pantser.

Orly Konig is an escapee from the corporate world. Now she spends her days chatting up imaginary friends, drinking too much coffee, and negotiating writing space around her cats. She is the founding president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and a member of the Tall Poppy Writers. She’s a book coach and author of The Distance Home and  Carousel Beach .

Website | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | BookBub | Goodreads

Take it away Orly…

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

I Had to Do This: Clarifying Ambiguous Pronouns

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Ambiguous pronouns can muddy a scene, and cause unintentional hilarity. Make sure yours are clear. 

Ambiguous pronouns creep into our work and they're not always easy to spot. We know what they refer to because we wrote them, but if the pronoun isn't near what the referenced noun was, or there are a lot of nouns in the sentence, it's not always clear to readers. It can trip them up and make them pause to figure out what we mean.

It, this, and that are prime offenders.

Exactly what is it referring to?
It is used often when writing, and most of the time it's easy to figure out what it refers to.

Let's try some examples:

Bob grabbed the shotgun and ran for the box of shells sitting on a crate by the ax. It wasn't enough, but he needed every weapon he could find right now.

Okay, what is the "it" here referring to?

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

WIP Diagnostic: Is This Working? A Closer Look at Creating Sympathetic Characters

Critique By Maria D'Marco

WIP 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: Five

Please Note: As of today, critique slots are booked through June 20.

This week’s questions:

1. Is it a sympathetic character?

2. Does she sound like a twelve-year-old?

Market/Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

How to Get Back on Track When All Your Planning Fails

By Aliza Mann, @AlizaMannAuthor

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

JH: Missing a goal or failing a project can be disheartening, and missing enough of them in a row can derail your entire writing career. Aliza Mann shares tips on how to get back on track when all your plans fail.

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

Why Should Anyone Help Your Protagonist?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Before you let a character help your protagonist, ask them why they'd offer that help. Most times, they probably wouldn't.

Before I dive in today, as part of NaNoProMo, I'm guest posting over at BadRedhead Media, chatting about marketing, and asking the question: Will Your Novel Solve a Reader's Problem? I'm also giving away a hour of one-on-one time with me to ask/talk about whatever you writing or publishing topics you want.

I have a small pet peeve in fiction--characters who are always willing to drop everything and help the protagonist. I'm not referring to the best friends (that's kind of their job), but the random people your protagonist runs into who have no good reason to answer questions, or agree to turn their backs at the right moment, or even take any risks for a total stranger, yet they do so time and time again.

It's a plot thing, I get it. That's the way the plot needs to unfold and it's exhausting to have every single thing in an entire novel be a fight. There are times when things need to go the protagonist's way. From a plotting standpoint, it's easy to see how it happens--this is where the protagonist learns X and this character will tell her X.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

3 Ways to Make Failure Fascinating

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: If the protagonist succeeds right away, it makes for a very short novel. Laurence MacNaughton shares tips on how to make failure the best part of the story.

Every story is about somebody who wants something and has trouble getting it. It doesn't matter whether your book is about a detective trying to catch a killer, a young professional trying to find true love, or a sorceress trying to save the world from doomsday. Somebody wants something and they fail to get it. (At least until the end of the story.) The problem is, failure is inherently boring. How do you write about a character who is failing, and yet still keep the reader fascinated?

Every scene is driven by a story question. Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

The Difference Between Painting a Scene vs Dramatizing a Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A great scene is about more than just describing what's there--or what's going on.

As writers, we strive for beautiful writing, but a novel is more than just pretty language. It's a story about characters overcoming obstacles, and to capture that action (and those readers), it's important to dramatize our scenes and bring them to life.

If we only focus on painting word pictures and describing what's going on, we miss out on the chance to show that scene in action. Just as we miss out on opportunities for engrossing pictures if we only focus on the drama.

Let's take a look at the two sides and how you can use both to create a novel that is both vividly painted and well dramatized.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

WIP Diagnostic: Is This Working? A Closer Look at Providing Narrative Clarity

Critique By Maria D'Marco

WIP 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: Five

Please Note: As of today, critique slots are booked through June 13.

This week’s question: 

I am seeking more than narrative clarity and hoping to bring over some feeling, some sense of there being an emotional build up, a sense of distress. Does this succeed?

Market/Genre: Not specified

On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com