Category: authortips

Descriptive Writing, Agency, Telling Details, and Adjectives

Writing, Grammar, Grammarly, Ginger, telling detail, writing tips, writing craft, agency, descriptions in fiction, descriptions, how to write descriptions, good descriptions, powerful descriptions, compelling descriptions, memorable descriptions, description words, description synonym, agency in writing, descriptive writing, agency in fiction, creative writing workshop, critique group, Emma Darwin, adjectives, adverbs

Descriptive Writing

As I continue to edit my work in progress and think about meeting readers’ expectations, especially when it comes to descriptive writing, I recently came across and interesting review of Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read, “a book that explores how people imagine and remember the things they read.”

I’ve always been loath to write (and dislike reading) detailed descriptions of characters and settings. I’m OK with details that surface as the story progresses when they are relevant, but one of the fastest ways for me to lose interest in a book or story is a front-loaded block of description sentences which have no other purpose, and an abundance of adjectives and adverbs. She was tall and had green eyes. She stepped over the puddles with her long legs while smiling at Bob, showing off her perfect, white teeth… Ugh.

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Bestsellers, good writing, bad writing, and popular writing

Bestseller, Bestsellers, Best Seller, Bestseller List

At the risk of provoking the popular vs. good debate,  aspiring writers who wish to write well should study the novels that have endured (let’s call them the works of “masters” for this discussion), not the forgettable books on the top 10 bestseller list this week.

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How to use Free Indirect Discourse to strengthen your Fiction

Free Indirect Discourse (also called Free Indirect Speech) seems a clunky mouthful, but it is also a powerful tool to make your writing more intimate when used in proper measure.  Wikipedia says: “What distinguishes Free Indirect [Discourse; FID for short] from normal indirect speech is the lack of an introductory expression such as ‘He said’ or ‘he thought’. It is as if the subordinate clause carrying the content of the indirect speech is taken out of the main clause which contains it, becoming the main clause itself. Using [FID] may convey the character’s words [and thoughts] more directly than in normal indirect.”

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Writing a book? Know when to share your novel manuscript

Writing workshop, writing seminar, writing class

Most young writers (of all ages) share their manuscript much too often and much too early in the hopes of getting constructive feedback on their work in progress. For instance, I see a lot of writers share their work after just a first or second draft. Some share “Chapter 1” of a novel, even though chapter 1 is all they have written. Even if such drafts are free of spelling and grammatical errors, sharing a draft so early is a mistake.

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How to successfully submit your work in a fiction writing workshop

fiction writing workshop, fiction writing classes, fiction submission, writing groupAre you writing a story (or writing a novel) to be critiqued? If you are participating in a writing group — be it a fiction writing workshop, a fiction class in school, a writing studio, or a writing seminar — there are a few, simple things you can do to help make sure your work is well received. I bring this up because I often see writers do things which predisposes their critique group to dislike their work or avoid it almost immediately. The good news is these are really easy things to do.

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Hemingway Editor + Grammarly App = Nirvana (almost)

Hemingway App Editor, Grammarly, Proofreading Editor, Grammerly App Editor

Writers always need help with editing, so this is pretty damn cool: Two of my favorite tools are now working together for free. The Hemingway App has always been free, and Grammarly has a free version. But now, with the Grammarly Chrome extension, not only can you use both of them, you can use both of them together. It’s not the same as having a human editor, but if you are trying to figure out how to write a book, this combination can be a big help. Let me explain…

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Grammar Checkers and Style Checkers: Can they help?

Woman writing, grammar, edit, editing

We are writers, not editors

Few of us think of ourselves as editors. Of course, we all want our submissions to be grammatically correct and stylistically clean and easy to read while being true to our voice. It is hard, though, to get it right. The great news is that there are powerful tools that can help, some of which are free.

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How to write a book? Practice to improve your craft


Writing Practice, Sci Fi, Writing Science Fiction, Writing Sci Fi

I saw a question on a board the other day asking what does it mean to “practice writing”? This could be several things, but my view is that there are three things I practice. And to be clear, I think all writing is practice. Even the things I publish are not perfect. They were just good enough to publish.

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