This post is based on a question I got quite a while back and answered for a newsletter subscriber. Bethani asked, “How do you write stories that are intriguing without using too many words?”
I’d been intending to expand this into a blog post for at least several months, and finally got to it in my big batching project before my wedding so I can finally share Continue reading “Intrigue & Mystery with Selective Prose”
You’ve read all the dialogue tips, you understand the concepts that make for strong dialogue, but your characters’ conversations are still coming across flat on the page. It could be that you don’t fully understand your character’s voice, or it could mean you just need more practice! These exercises are intended to help you focus that practice and experiment with Continue reading “5 Dialogue-Strengthening Exercises”
When I wrote my series on crafting emotional resonance, I promised a future post on crafting effective dialogue. This is another element of your writing that will elevate your scenes and emphasize the emotions your characters are feeling. So let’s get into it.
The most crucial piece of believable dialogue is to ensure that your characters talk like themselves. This comes down to Continue reading “Crafting Effective Dialogue: Writing Between the Lines”
In my series on crafting your stories to resonate with your readers’ emotions, I asked for excerpt submissions that I could take and apply those concepts to in order to provide an example of what I’ve been talking about. So today I’ll be showing you a piece of Grace A. Johnson‘s writing which she submitted, along with my commentary!
In case you missed it:
Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 1 – Character-Driven Description
Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 2 – Character Reactions
Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 3 – Repressed Emotion
Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 4 – Precise Prose
I’ve never done a critique for a blog post before, so you’ll have to bear with me as I develop a layout for it.
First, I want to lay out Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance – Example Critique”
Today marks the end of this series on writing emotionally resonant scenes and stories! There will be one more related post in a few weeks that covers writing effective dialogue—plus a critique post next week that provides insight into how all of these tips can be applied—but this will be the last how-to post that’s officially part of the series. Today I want to talk about how your prose can make or break the tone and emotion of your writing.
I’ve talked about why I love classic literature before, and one of the reasons is that classic authors took word choice very seriously. They made a point to choose exactly the right words to convey their meaning, connect to their themes, and highlight the emotion they wanted to resonate with readers. Mark Twain said well that,
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
As authors, we know that words have power. This is certainly as true on the micro level as it is true of story as a whole! Yet our specific word choice within stories, within scenes, within sentences is often less careful than it could be, and our stories—and their impact on readers, by extension—suffer for it.
The question is: How do we fix it? Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 4 – Precise Prose”