Janice Hardy's Blog, page 82

The Six-Figure Master Fiction Plot

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton  

Part of the How They Do It Series (Contributing Author)

Ever wish you could write a novel in just a matter of weeks . . . and then sell it for good money?

Lester Dent knew how. He wrote his first novel in just 13 days. Over the course of his career, he wrote nearly 200 novel-length stories, mostly for the Doc Savage series. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, he wrote a book nearly every month.

He also crammed the pages of pulp fiction magazines with short stories cranked out under various pen names. During the Great Depression, while legions of writers were starving, he boasted that he made $18,000 a year with his writing. In today's terms, that's more than $250,000 a year.

How did he do it? He used a very specific formula. He called it his “Master Plot.”
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Sunday Writing Tip: Get Rid of Your Crutch Words

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, cut or revise your crutch words—those pesky and weak words you tend to overuse.
Crutch words are words or phrases we tend to overuse—our go-to words we can slap down and not think too hard about. You might notice you use a certain dialogue tag, or mannerism a lot, or you always describe something a certain way.

Every writer has their own set of words they use over and over, and it can vary from book to book. For example, mine are just, only, and so, and I’ve had eyes widen and fell into step beside me appear way too much in various books.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Real Life Diagnostics: Is This Romantic Thriller Opening Working?

Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Real Life 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 Real Life Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines. 

Submissions currently in the queue: One

Please Note: As of today, RLD slots are booked through February 16.

This week’s question:

Is this opening working?

Market/Genre: Romantic Thriller

Note: We have a newbie today, who was brave enough to send their first attempt at an opening scene. Please bear that in mind when offering feedback.

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

Send up the (Red) Flag: Telling Words That Often Spell Trouble in Our Writing

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week's refresher Friday revisits (and updates) one of my favorites--locating red flag words for telling, not showing. Enjoy!

Show, don't tell is one of those pieces of advice that nearly every writer hears at some point, and not just when we're just starting out. Even when we know how to fix it (use strong nouns and verbs), we can't always find the problem in our work to fix it.

This frustrated me back in the day, and I set off to figure out how to find told prose. After a lot of study and analyzing, I found a series of "red flag words" often found in told prose. Not every word found meant the prose that contained it was told, but when I received feedback that a section sounded told, one of these red flag words almost always appeared.

Let's look at a quick round-up of the different types of red flag words commonly found in told prose.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Follow Me to the Playground! The Merry-Go-Round Way of Writing

By Tiffany Reisz

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: Common "wisdom" says writers should write every day, but that's not always feasible (or even accurate). Tiffany Reizs takes the podium today to share why keeping momentum going is more important that writing every day. 

Tiffany Reisz is the USA Today bestselling author of The Red , an NPR Best Book of 2017. She has written over twenty novels that have been published in over a dozen languages and twenty countries. Her books have won a Lambda Award, a RITA®Award, and two RT Editor’s Choice Awards. She is married to New York Times bestselling author Andrew Shaffer ( Hope Never Dies ). They live in Lexington, Kentucky with their two cats. The cats are not writers.

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Instagram |

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

5 Ways to Turn Off Your Inner Editor and Get More Writing Done

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Our inner editor is an enemy to our muse—here’s how to shut it up.
I think writers would get a lot more written if there was a first draft keyboard without a delete or backspace key, and a mouse that didn’t let you click on anything but the menus. Sure, those first drafts would be a mess, but we’d be free to just type and let the words flow without the ability to fix them—so there’d be no inner editor telling us to go back and tweak it.

It’s only natural yo want to to write the best draft possible, but sometimes the creative process needs to be set free to flow unhindered to get anywhere. Constantly stopping to tweak or fix a word can sap our creative energy and lower our productivity.

Now, I’m not saying you have to go crazy every writing session and make a mess, but setting aside some time to write without that inner editor nagging you is a liberating experience. The more you get used to it, the less that editor shouts in your ear while you’re trying to work. Maybe try it one or two times a week and see how it goes. Or do it for a week and see how it affects your productivity.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

5 Tips for Using Voice in Dialogue

By Vincent H. O’Neil

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Voice is a tricky aspect of writing, from finding the author's voice to creating the voices of the characters. Please help me welcome Vincent O'Neil to the lecture hall today, to share his thought and tips on using voice in our dialogue.

Vincent H. O’Neil is the Malice Award-winning author of the Frank Cole mysteries and the theater-themed mystery Death Troupe . HarperCollins recently released the fifth and final novel in his military science fiction Sim War series, written as Henry V. O’Neil.

Website | Goodreads | Facebook |

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

7 Reasons Why a First Draft Sucks

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

First drafts are written first for a reason.
Getting to the end of a first draft is an accomplishment that ought to be celebrated, no matter what state that draft is in. It takes a lot of effort and determination to write an entire novel. It takes planning and brainstorming, and uses up a lot of creative juice to get all those ideas from our heads to the page.

It’s also not uncommon to stumble a bit and write a first draft that’s, shall we say, less than stellar. Maybe it even sucks.

If this is you, take heart—you’re not alone. Bad first drafts happen all the time, even to professional authors with dozens of books under their writing belts. Writing is a creative endeavor and you can’t force creativity, even if you can plow through it and keep writing when the muse is on vacation.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Sunday Writing Tip: Get Rid of Unnecessary Adverbs

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, cut or revise any unnecessary adverbs.
Adverbs aren’t inherently bad, but they’re often a red flag for weak writing in the manuscript, and opportunities to make that writing stronger. They’re moments of emotion or action that could be fleshed out for greater impact or interest.

This task might take longer than the usual Sunday Tip, but search for ly [space], ly, ly. and possibly ly; in your manuscript. Examine any adverbs found (not all of them will be, such as family), and decide if it’s the best word for that sentence or if you can do better.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Real Life Diagnostics: Is the Opening and Voice of this Literary Novel Compelling?

Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Real Life 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 Real Life Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: Two

Please Note: As of today, RLD slots are booked through February 16.

This week’s questions:

I’m curious if this opening and the “voice” are compelling. I am also curious if the dialogue sounds realistic.

Market/Genre: Literary fiction

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