In the game of writing, not all words were created equal. Here are twenty-five weak words writers should avoid. I have included stronger alternatives. Remember that while these words may be commonly used, it’s not necessarily that they are always … Continue reading 25 words most writers should avoid
One of the things I have been exploring lately is ramping up my descriptions. Especially when setting a scene. While I am far from an expert in this regard, I would like to share what I have learned so far … Continue reading The Power of Visual Descriptions
These two writing mistakes which a particular pet peeve of mine. No matter how well everything else is written, these (more often than not) let the whole text down. They both sound too much like “writing” to be good storytelling. … Continue reading Do you make these two newbie writing mistakes?
This post is about a writing theory I have – a theory I call trap doors, off-ramps, and monsters in waiting. This is a theory about sequential writing. What is sequential writing? Sequential writing is a form of story telling … Continue reading Trap doors, off-ramps, and the monsters in waiting
Word choice matters when crafting a story. Good word choice can make a good story into a great one. Just as poor word choice can make a great story merely okay. In this post, we will look at some tricky … Continue reading Word Choice: The secret power of a great writer
I have been challenged by Venita to address the topic of will it throw a reader to change tenses? If you are not sure what tenses are, I wrote a very long post that takes a deep dive into tenses … Continue reading Does it throw readers to change tenses?
Writing description for a story – either you love it or you hate it. Either way, as writers, description is something we all have to do. Description is often tricky because it straddles the line between telling and showing. In … Continue reading One surprising trick to make your descriptions pop
The most powerful tool a writer has is the line of questions that begin “what if…?”. For example: What if you could see ten minutes into the future? What if they banned being smart? What if ghosts were real and … Continue reading The power of what if
For reasons I am going to explain, today we take a dive into tenses and narrative viewpoints. I recently asked in our Facebook group for topic ideas to write about. One of the requests was for an article about tenses … Continue reading The use of tenses and narrative viewpoints
The received wisdom is that writers should avoid adding prologue. But the humble prologue itself is not the problem – bad prologues are. It is very easy to write a horrible, story crushing, reader boring, snore inducing prologue and much … Continue reading How to write a prologue that isn’t horrible
The advice “show; don’t tell” is readily dished out by writers. Which is all well and good if you happen to know what on Earth they mean by that. The truth is that once you see the difference you can easily … Continue reading What do you mean “show; don’t tell”?
This post is about “active voice” and “passive voice” in writing. I will show you why you should not worry about them. The truth is that while the active and passive voice can both be worth knowing about, they are … Continue reading Stop worrying about active or passive voice