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Harness Your Story Idea to Write a Better Novel When a writer has a new story idea, you spend time thinking about your novel before you ever start writing. You’ll do bits of research. You’ll brainstorm how the story will work. You hear the voices of different characters. You think about what the book is…
Shortcuts to Writing Like A Pro You can avoid new writer traps that mark you as a beginner. Professional writing is geared toward readers. Anything that draws the reader out of the story and calls attention to your writing is not worth it.Writing craft takes practice. The benefit for you is that your story is…
Photo by Jordan McQueen on Unsplash Backstory and Dreams – New Writer Pitfalls Backstory and Dreams are traps for beginning writers. When you’re just starting out, avoid them. Yes, I know Michael Connelly uses war dreams for Bosch. Use these two story elements with a light touch. Best to avoid them. If you use them at all, wait…
Create Obstalces for Your Sleuth With Alternating Scenes Scenes are the building blocks of your story. Each scene moves the story forward. As you build your story alternate between action and reaction.When you go through the first edits of your story make certain that all scene components are in each scene. You’ll take your reader…
Photo by Eugeniu Esanu on Unsplash How To Not Get Lost In Your Mystery Writing a first mystery can be challenging as a new author. With all the information out there about writing a story, you may be tempted to get “everything” into your story. And, with your creative mind buzzing, it’s easy to have lots of ideas…
Photo by pulkit jain on Unsplash How To Meet The Challenge of Editing Your Manuscript As a novel writer, the editing process seems mysterious, daunting, and unmanageable when you view it through your creative writer lens. You are right, manuscript editing requires a different mindset and separate skills.If you approach editing with a perspective that…
Tips to Draw Your Reader Into Your Mystery Create a mystery that gives your reader opportunities to play and active part in unveiling the suspect. Mindset and Methods Beginning writers often are so involved in the process of creating a novel, they forget the reader. Readers are an author’s lifeblood. They post reviews which are…
Tips to Make Supporting Characters Suspicious Supporting characters are rich tools for misdirecting your sleuth. Characters because of their secrets, lies, and coverups lead the sleuth down trails that are dead ends. How to Make Innocent Suspects Look Guilty When you observe people, you’ll notice actions and dialogue that you can use in your mystery. Keep…
Find The Victim’s Secrets in Your Mystery The victim is a strategic character in your mystery. Spend just as much time developing this character as you do your protagonist and the villain. Even though your victim is dead or soon dead, they are the character around whom the story revolves. The crime against the victim…
Basic Mystery Tropes and How to Start Writing a Mystery I had fun with the first Mystery Monday. With an Ask Me Anything base, I answered a few questions as well as covering the topic for the day – Basic Mystery Tropes. Links to Today’s Episode Ten ways to hide clues in your mystery. The…
