From Rick: One of the challenges writers face can be making up fictional identifiers. We rarely have problems with inventing character names. For place names, we have to exercise some caution to avoid potentially disparaging references. If a character stops
Read moreFrom Rick: This time I’m going to wrap up my advice on analyzing your story. I certainly haven’t covered everything, but I have tried to cover most of the essentials for ensuring your story has the right impact on your
Read moreFrom Rick: I apologize for not having posted here for two weeks. Last Monday my computer blew out its power supply. No files were lost, but I wasn’t able to access the post for last week in time. All is
Read moreFrom Rick: What do I mean by “Keep your writing real”? Before I answer that question, I want to point out that the question mark in that sentence above is correctly placed. Why? Because the question mark applies to the
Read moreFrom Rick: In Part 2, I talked about two ways in which writers may overwrite: —unnecessary use of characters’ names —repeated words and phrases In this last part I’ll finish up this series by talking about three other ways writers
Read moreFrom Rick: Last time, I pointed out several ways in which writers overwrite their stories and novels: —unnecessary dialogue tags —wordiness in general —unnecessary repetition of information To that list I want to add: —unnecessary use of characters’ names —repeated
Read moreFrom Rick: Mark Twain’s essay “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” is famous both for its typical Twain humor and for Twain’s rules for good writing. I’ve mentioned this essay before. You can do a Google search for it, or you can
Read moreFrom Rick: This week I promised no rants. So, no rants. No promises about next week though. We’ve all heard a line on TV or in a movie, or we’ve read one in a book that makes us think “That’s
Read moreFrom Rick: Do you interrupt your story with description? Scott and I have dealt with the topic of description several times in 2015 and more recently in Part of this two-part series back in September 2018. Click on DESCRIPTION in
Read moreFrom Rick: From time to time the question arises from writers about how much detail and description to add to a story and how and when to insert it. This important topic is going to take at least two posts
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