Chris Stralyn's Blog, page 5

#WritersWisdom -Rule 75- Setting Matters

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #75- Setting Matters. “Setting is a romanticized and particular environment shaped by your insights and eye for detail. It’s a place as malleable as clay, and you can bend and twist it to support your story.”


Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#WritersWisdom -Rule 74-Tell A Dream And You Risk Boring A Reader

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #74-Tell A Dream And You Risk Boring A Reader. ”Readers can’t  help but feel tricked, ripped off by this manipulative device. Because that’s all it is. A cheap gimmick meant to heighten suspense. Art is already fake.  Readers pretend it’s not, but a device like this makes it even more fake. It’s a matter of trust. Dreams betray that  trust.”
  
Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry,  (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#WritersWisdom -Rule 73- Give the Opposition Quality Attention

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #73- Give the Opposition Quality Attention. “Balance your  protagonists with compelling antagonists. As you devise your villains, make them psychologically complex. Create something surprising in their  personalities that may even endear them to us a little. Give the opposition quality attention and good lines. The power of the antagonists should equal that of the protagonists.”  

Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#WritersWisdom -Rule 72- Keep Your Characters Real

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #72- Keep Your Characters Real. “We adore eccentricity. But  characters might stray too far in their weirdness and just get too goofy. You want strangeness within realistic bounds, psychological richness without cartoonish exaggeration. And there must be an eye in the hurricane, a regular and reasonable person much like your average reader, around whom these larger than life personalities swirl.”  

Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#WritersWisdom -Rule 71- Establish Point of View Early

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #71- Establish Point of View Early. “There are two basic points of view(POV): first person & third person. First person is ‘I’, and the plot reveals itself through the eyes, ears, and voice of the one it happened to, ‘me.’ Use third person to tell stories about other people. Some third person accounts follow just the main character. Others are like most films, wherein you witness scenes that happen among secondary characters too,  away from the protagonist. Whatever POV you select, make it clear from the  beginning. If there are multiple viewpoints, make a shift early on. In other  words, you can’t track just the protagonist for a hundred pages then suddenly introduce a scene without him.”  

Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

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#WritersWisdom -Rule 70- Use Dialogue Tags Correctly

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #70- Use Dialogue Tags Correctly. “Use ‘said’ for statements, and ‘asked’ for questions. And that’s it. No exceptions. The reason is economy. Readers take as little notice of them as they do points of punctuation. Also,  place the tags within the quoted material when you can.” 
   
Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#Writers Wisdom -Rule 69- Dialogue Creates Tension

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #69- Dialogue Creates Tension. “You must ratchet up the  tension in your dialogue. Small talk never engages a reader. Cable news shows are onto this. They call it a lively debate, but usually it’s yelling, interruption, and bald effrontery. Whatever happened to civility and manners?  They don’t sell.” 

Taken from  The  Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry,  (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#WritersWisdom -Rule 68- Dialogue Speeds the Process of Discovery

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #68- Dialogue Speeds the Process of Discovery. “If the characters aren’t in a state of conflict, they should be on a mutual path of investigation.”


Taken from The  Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)

#WritersWisdom -Rule 67- Dialogue Heightens Drama

Writer’s Wisdom -Rule #67- Dialogue Heightens Drama. “Dialogue enhances action and often provokes it, through verbal baiting, verbal foreplay, or the process of  discovery through conversation. Dialogue also demands scenes. Try inserting dialogue into your narrative. The most important feature of dialogue is that it  reveals character. What the people in your story say tells us more about them than their costumes, their physical tics, how they decorate a room, or even what they do. For fictional characters, words in dialogue speak louder than action.”

 Taken from The Writer’s Book of Wisdom - 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft, by Steven Taylor Goldsberry, (http://www.amazon.com/The-Writers-Boo...)