Fiction Writing Tips
My dilemmas of first or third person voice
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve started out writing this second novel using three different first person voices. When I wrote my first novel, it started out being in first person but then I rewrote it in third person (limited). All I keep thinking is this - why couldn’t language just have one possibility for voice, [...]
Should creative writing be studied?
Sometimes I really regret that I didn’t study creative writing at university. I was really encouraged to write throughout primary school, and in early high school a couple of teachers were also quite complimentary about my writing skills. But as university choices loomed ever closer, and I was able to get good grades in other [...]
Stuck for a character’s name?
Remember how I’m the queen of procrastination? Well, not long after I discovered the Titlescorer website, I read a post on the Writer’s Technology Companion blog about a website that generated random names that you could use for your characters. I checked it out but was disappointed to see it was only going to spit [...]
Characters who grow and have flaws
Earlier in the week I mentioned the Men With Pens post that reminded me I have to make characters that my readers will care about, and the Men With Pens gang mentioned there would be more character tips to come. True to their word, the latest post is about making your character flawed, and it’s [...]
First chapter reminders, with thanks to Louise Doughty
You might remember I’ve set myself a March 31 deadline to rewrite the first chapter of my novel. Of course, the first thing I realised is that until I figure out a good structure for the novel, I won’t even know what the first chapter is, but I have a pretty good idea of [...]
Real and lovable characters, say Men With Pens
My RSS feeder brings in all kinds of writing info and tips for me each day, most of which I skim and ignore pretty quickly because I’m always in a hurry to get to the actual writing I have to do. But this morning a post from Men With Pens (cool name, hey!) caught my [...]
Testing story ideas: The dinner table method
A recent post over at Vagabondish, part of a series on being a better travel writer, had a quote from a Robert McKee book which seems like something I could keep in mind with fiction story ideas. Robert McKee himself explains it best:
Next time you’re out with a friend, ask him or her if you [...]
Tips from “The First Five Pages”
I heard somewhere of Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile so when I saw it on the library shelf I grabbed it. And yesterday during 40+ degree heat, I devoured it. Full of really useful advice, it’s an editor’s viewpoint on what gets a novel [...]
Learning about writing
When I moved back to Perth recently, I had the joy of unpacking boxes of books I hadn’t seen in six years. I also had the displeasure of deciding which of these I’d have to live without for another year or two, while I stay in a flat that just can’t accommodate the library of [...]