Janice Hardy's Blog, page 50

5 Questions to Ask for Stronger Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

If you have trouble plotting, ask these five questions in every scene. 

I've always been a natural plotter. That doesn't mean I was always good at it, mind you, just that figuring out what my characters had to do rarely left me scratching my head.

I think it's because I typically think in "What has to happen in this scene?" terms. And the action, the "what happens" is driven by a character with goal. Create a problem, toss in something that has to happen, add a protagonist who needs something, and voila, you have a plot.

In basic terms, a plot is a series of events that allow you to illustrate your story. It's simple, yet often difficult, which is why so many writers struggle with it.

As you start your scene, your protagonist will have a goal. It'll probably be a story goal, because the whole point is to move the story forward, right? But maybe it's a smaller goal, or a internal goal, or a unconscious goal. Maybe it's not anything they want, but something you as the author wants.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

What’s a Chapter? And How Long Should it Be?

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Chapters are the typical way writers break up a novel, but what's the right way to handle them? Dario Ciriello shares thoughts and tips on handling your novel's chapters. 
I was recently asked by a writer how long a chapter should be, and how do you know where to end it. My first reaction was to smile and quote the old English saying, how long is a piece of string? In fiction, there really no rule, which set me thinking on what exactly a chapter is. Is it an organizing principle, or simply a device of convenience?

Chapters in fiction became common in the mid-eighteenth century. Novelist Henry Fielding, in 1742, gave a lovely description of the divisions between chapters as “an Inn or Resting-Place, where he may stop and take a Glass, or any other Refreshment, as it pleases him.” At the time, the average chapter was quite brief, perhaps 1,800 words, and typically encumbered with a mini-index listing its contents, such as, say,

CHAPTER TWELVE: Mr. Stevens woos the chambermaid, with interesting results

Or more – much more. Some nineteenth-century chapters in particular could contain several sentences in a list divided by semicolons.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

How to Set Tone and Mood in Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Setting the right tone can go a long way to drawing readers into your story and keeping their attention.

I'm a little weird when it comes to scary movies. I enjoy (most) of them, but sometimes I also get so tense I can't watch them. I figured out ages ago it the music that gets me, not the scene itself. It builds, pokes at my emotions, and builds the tension in a masterful way that also builds my anticipation and fear. This also happens in games during boss fights or any mission with really stressful music.

When a movie or game starts getting to me, I mute the volume and all that built-up tension drops to the floor.

What do movie scores have to do with tone and mood?
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

How to Be a Productive, Healthy Writer During Mentally Draining Times

By Dave Chesson, @DaveChesson

Part of The Writer's Life Series 

JH: As quarantine continues, it puts more and more of a drain on us mentally and emotionally. Dave Chesson shares five steps for managing these troubling times. 

Dave Chesson is the founder of Kindlepreneur.com and creator of Publisher Rocket, a software that helps authors market their books more effectively.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Take it away Dave…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

The Pros and Cons of Studying the Writing Craft

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Studying the craft of writing is useful to improve your skill, but at what point does it become a hindrance?

I received an interesting email last week from a woman who’s taking advantage of her quarantine to study up and improve her writing. She’s been reading a lot of craft books, and was wondering if a writer could read too much—could their education outweigh their skill?

Short answer: Yes, absolutely.

Long answer: Still yes, but with more detail (grin).

When I was starting out, books and school were pretty much the only ways to get a writing education. There were writing conferences out there, but they were harder to find since the Internet was still new and just becoming the behemoth it is today (and for the record, this was early ’90s. I’m not a dinosaur yet).

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

WIP Diagnostic: Is This Working? A Closer Look at a Prologue

Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

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: One

Please Note: As of today, critique slots are booked through April 4.

This week’s question:

Is this prologue working?

Market/Genre: Unspecified

On to the diagnosis…

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Revealing a Character's Past Without Falling Into Backstory

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Backstory is a necessary evil in many stories, but you can sneak it in so flows naturally with the scene.

A character's past is important to her character arc, but it's an area that can easily turn into messy backstory or infodump if we're not careful. We drop in information because it has to go somewhere, and getting it out of the way quickly lets us get to the story faster.

Odds are this "drop in" of information is going to make the past feel stuck in, and feel more like backstory than a natural part of the narrative. It can stop the story, kill the pacing, and read like the author held up her hand and said, "Wait, hang on a sec, let me tell you this one thing before we go on."
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Write Happy! The 4 Little Letters That Will Transform Your Writing Process

By Jacqueline Myers

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: Finding the right process is a challenge most writers face. Luckily, Jacqueline Myers is here to share tips on how your personality can lead you to the perfect process.

Jacqueline is currently happily at work on her second mystery series (under a pen name) while sharing what she's learned with other writers. Using the synergy of personality theory and brain science, Jacqueline coaches writers using a proprietary methodology that helps them overcome their debilitating creative blocks so they can write un-put-down-able books.

If you are struggling, she'd love to see how she can support you! Schedule your free story strategy session here. You can also email her at jacqueline@intuitivewritingcoach.com.

Take it away Jacqueline…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Plot Your Novel With Mini Arcs

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

If you have trouble plotting an entire novel at once, try plotting it one small arc at a time. 

Trying to keep an entire novel in your head can be challenging for some writers. Trying to plot out an entire novel before you write it can be challenging for other writers. But there's a middle ground that lets you plot out smaller chunks of the story as you write it—sort of a pantsing outline.

Plotting and writing with mini arcs.

An entire book can be overwhelming to plot—especially if you’re not sure what happens. But mini arcs are more manageable and allow you to work with the immediate scenes and problems without worrying about what comes next and trying to force the plot to head in that direction.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

The Grieving Process & Finishing Your Novel

By Bonnie Randall

Part of The Writer's Life Series 

JH: Writing a novel is a commitment, and when that "relationship" ends, it can be traumatic. Bonnie Randall shares tips and thoughts on dealing with novel grief. 

Truman Capote said “Finishing a book is just like you took your child out into the back yard and shot it.”

Writing a novel is a full-time immersion into an alternate reality within which we live for extensive stretches of time—creating characters who, by our own intense efforts, are as three-dimensional as any flesh and blood person we’ve ever encountered, and settings as vivid as any locale we’ve ever been to.

Naturally, then, we form relationships with the acutely real people and places we create.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com