Janice Hardy's Blog, page 84
January 23, 2019
Three Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Stakes in Your Story
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_HardyStakes are critical to any story, because without stakes, why should readers care about what's going on?
Storytelling problems often appear in one of three areas—lack of goals, conflicts, or stakes. There’s a reason these three things make up the holy trinity of good storytelling. They work best when balanced, holding up the story like a three-legged stool. Weaken any one leg, and the stool (and story) collapses.
Goals drive the plot, conflicts create the suspense, but the stakes make readers emotionally invest in the story. Stakes make them care about the characters and their dreams, and makes them worry they won’t overcome their problems and succeed. It doesn’t matter if what’s at stake is one small grade on a test or the fate of the world, the risks and consequences of the characters’ actions affect how much readers care.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 22, 2019
Intuiting Your Character: A Guided Imagery Exercise
By Bonnie Randall Part of the How They Do It Series (Contributing Author)
During a recent retreat, I had the pleasure of participating in a guided imagery which, through symbolic interpretation, offered insight which I immediately wanted to apply to fiction characters I have created, past and present.
Directions: In order to partake in this exercise, you must be willing to fully immerse yourself into becoming your character. In other words, when faced with the following series of questions, do NOT answer with what you think, but rather write down—in as much detail as possible—the FIRST AND MORE INTUITIVE IMPRESSION your character receives after being faced with each of the following scenarios:
Now let’s start:
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 21, 2019
Are You Missing Opportunities to Make Your Writing Stronger?
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy Today's Afternoon Rewind takes another look at ways to make your writing stronger. Enjoy!
There are a lot of rules in writing. Some are solid ones, such as rules of spelling or grammar, but others are more nebulous, such as how to start a scene, or whether or not to use adverbs. And some of these "rules" have become commonplace because it's harder to explain to new writers how to do it well, and much easier to just say "don't do it."
I like to look at these ambiguous rules as opportunities to improve a sentence or scene. They're opportunities to strengthen your novel and improve your own writing skills by learning why a rule exists and how to use it or break it when necessary.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
How to Avoid Repetitive Sentence Structure
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy “List-like prose" can occur in a variety of ways, and they all have the same result—flat writing.
Writing is more than simply writing down what happens in a scene. Good writing has a musical flow, drawing the reader into and through the paragraph and seamlessly handing them off to the next paragraph. Without that flow, you get a monotonous rhythm that puts readers to sleep:
I ran down to the lake to look for my little sister, Georgia. I found her sitting on the dock, her feet dangling in the water. I yelled for her to come home, but she didn't seem to hear me. I went over and nudged her in the arm. She screamed and fell off the dock into the water. I just laughed.-Yawn-
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 20, 2019
Sunday Writing Tip: Make Sure Your Scene Endings Hook Your Readers
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, check how you end each scene and/or chapter and make sure you’re giving readers a reason to turn the page.
A scene break or chapter ending is a natural place for readers to put down a book, and sometimes we write it that way without considering the downsides. Characters go to sleep, they leave for a journey, they settle in to wait—they at in ways that say “pause the story here” in some way.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 19, 2019
Real Life Diagnostics: Is This Opening Working?
Critique By Janice Hardy, @Janice_HardyReal 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 January 26.
This week’s questions:
Does this opening work? Does it feel like telling? Would an agent ask for more?
Market/Genre: Romantic thriller
On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 18, 2019
Alternative Ways to Describe Character Reactions
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy This week's Refresher Friday takes an updated look at ways to keep your emotional descriptions fresh. Enjoy!
I frequently receive questions about finding good alternative ways to use common reaction/emotion words. He smiled. She gulped. He frowned. She cringed. (Actually, that’s a story right there, isn’t it? He sounds like a stalker to me) Anyway…
These words get used a lot because they’re good words and get the point we're trying to make across. Smiling to show happiness, frowning to show displeasure, gulping to show fear. But after a while, characters reacting to the same emotions the same way over and over feels repetitive.
However, switching it up too much can lead to overwriting. If a character never smiles, but beams, smirks, grins, curls a lip, corners of the mouth rise, and all the other various ways we write to say "smile," it can feel awkward. Like "said," "smiled" and the like are fairly invisible, so while readers do notice them, they don't tend to stick out unless they are too many of them.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 17, 2019
Why the Ending of Galaxy Quest Always Makes Me Cry
By David Mack, @DavidAlanMackPart of The Writer's Life Series
JH: Stories have the power to inspire us, move us, and profoundly change us. Please help me welcome David Mack to the lecture hall today, to share a story that moves him, and explain why we should never take what we do for granted.
David Mack is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure.Mack’s writing credits span several media, including television (for episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), short fiction, and comic books. His new novel The Iron Codex is available now from Tor Books.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Tor
Take it away David...
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
January 16, 2019
Get Over Overstating: Trimming Unnecessary Words in Your Manuscript
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy Today's Afternoon Rewind takes another look at ways to cut words from your manuscript.
Often, when we tinker with our manuscripts we repeat ourselves. Sometimes this is good, as it reinforces critical elements of the story, but sometimes it just bloats the story and adds extra words. Here are some tips on finding--and eliminating--those unnecessary words in your own work.
Words That Tell Readers Everything
A common unnecessary word or phrase is one that states something the reader can clearly figure out from the text. Trimming it can tighten the prose and make it read more smoothly.
I darted to the window [and peeked out.] Enzie was running down the walk, waving her arms above her head and yelling.It's clear that the narrator here looks out the window after she darts to it because she tells you what she sees. Leaving in "and peeked out" won't hurt the story, but the goal is to start picking up the pace in this scene since something bad is about to happen. Having a shorter sentence achieves that.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
The Difference Between Critique Partners and Beta Readers
By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy Critique partners and beta readers have similar jobs, but they’re not the same thing.
January is a common month to start revisions and the search for critique partners and beta readers, and my various social media feeds are always filled with comments and thoughts related to both.
This year, I received a direct question from a reader about the difference between a critique and a beta read—and the people who do them.
Like so many other writing terms, these are often used interchangeably, but have slightly different meanings.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com
