From Rick: Most of us recognize that the comma is perhaps the most difficult piece of punctuation to get right because it has so many rules that apply to it. I prefer to call them conventions instead of rules because
Read moreFrom Rick: From time to time I receive questions about scenes and scene breaks. We’ve all heard the term “scene” used, but we don’t often hear it defined. Here’s one concise definition I found online: “A scene is a section
Read moreFrom Rick: This week’s post will be a short one from my perspective, but it will provide you with some good reading material and hopefully some good insights. We’re over ten years into indie publishing, and it’s safe to say
Read moreFrom Rick: How often in novels have you read descriptions like the following? (1) Nancy hung her jacket and hat in the closet across from the front door, and placed her black, knitted gloves inside the pocket. She sat on
Read moreFrom Rick: Last time I answered a question about whether the word “had” fell on the list of words we should avoid overusing in our writing, words like: really, just, actually, very, in fact, looked, seemed, looked like, there (as
Read moreFrom Rick: What’s the best way to promote your writing? As far as I know, it’s still word of mouth. In fact, that pretty much applies to promoting and marketing anything. Beyond that, I don’t pretend to have any answers
Read moreFrom Rick: Why is dialog important? In the past I’ve done several posts on dialogue, and you can find them under DIALOGUE in the categories list. There are five narrative modes in fiction (Description, Exposition, Dialogue, Thoughts, Action), and of
Read moreFrom Rick: You’ll find many articles on the internet and whole books devoted to advice on how to write a scene. I’m not going to pretend to know everything nor claim that I know better. What I want to do
Read moreFrom Rick: In my June 1, 2020 post I talked about how to deal with character thoughts, specifically inner (direct) thoughts. I also talked about indirect thoughts. In a novel I’m currently editing, I noticed some places where the author
Read moreFrom Rick: I had a different post planned for this week, but in the middle of the week, Kris Rusch grabbed me with an excellent her post on her blog. I know I mention her a lot on this blog,
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