Guides for voice usually focus on diction and syntax as the main avenues to achieving voice, and it’s certainly true that messing with diction and syntax will get you some unique voice. But the true source of strong voice comes from a different source.
Do you take us to a point of conflict and then, rather than allow us to see it play out and get all worried about the outcome, you summarize it or just resolve it quickly? Stretching tension means you lengthen the scene but also make it more gripping. Don’t push the action off-stage or rush through it. Linger on the most tense moments of the story to maximize engagement.
How to approach revision when you dread it. Knowing the different levels of revision will help you know how to receive critiques, how to prioritize and plan your revision, and how to re-energize the process with enthusiasm and creativity.
Causality governs story events. You want your story to feel authentic, believable, and seamless. You don’t want any of the events or reactions within the story to draw attention to themselves. They must be earned. This article examines common failures to earn story developments.
To avoid flat dialogue scenes, learn to triangulate the characters’ interaction with a lower-order goal.
“Escalating complications” is my preferred term for what’s commonly known as “rising action.” What is rising action? And how can you use it to maintain reader engagement in the middles of your scenes and stories? We take a lesson from iguanas and snakes here.
A mega list of books published in 2023, compiled in a table with info about genre, book description, and the person and tense of the narration.
Verisimilitude all about getting the reader to suspend disbelief and see realistic depictions of character, setting, and events. But what does it mean for such story elements to be realistic?
Once you’ve found a beta reader for your work, how should you proceed? Some tips here on how to prepare your expectations, your manuscript, and your reader.
What’s at the root of the “Show, Don’t Tell” concept, what does showing look like, and how might people abuse showing? An exploration of this oft-cited piece of writing advice.
Though tension is maybe the main source or reader engagement, there are several sources of “delight” that help charm the reader and make books memorable.
Using an omniscient narrator? It may help to be aware of these two dimensions, which account for the varieties of omniscient approaches.