Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

We are writing or editing our story.  It's good.  We like it.  But have we made prospect-killing mistakes early in our story, big errors in the story that work against its success?  Here's a discussion of six mistakes we might make in the first few chapters and how to fix them.  Also: lovely sentences have rhythm.  How can we learn prose rhythm?

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.

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Our first sentence's main task is to launch the reader into the story.  Here's how to begin our story with a riveting opening sentence.  And at the other end of the story, after all the pages how should we write the walkaway?

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Not just comedy novels but rather almost all novels will benefit from humor.  Here is how to exaggerate to make readers laugh.  Also, avoiding dialogue tag modifiers so that our dialogue doesn't become unintentionally funny.  

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.

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We writers should give readers what they want, and readers like dialogue.  Here is a technique for making our dialogue more engaging.  Also: the ten most beautiful words in the English language.  And: how to change telling to showing so the scene grips the reader.

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Among hundreds of fiction writing techniques, here is my favorite, and it involves weeping.  Also, a review of a critical skill for us: controlling the point of view.

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.

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Thomas Cullen writes, "the brains of skilled writers are wired over many years to mimic the rhythms, structures, patterns and prose of their favorite authors.”   We can learn lovely rhythms by reading famous fiction passages.   And: how to overcome the possible grind of writing the middle of the novel.

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Do we have what it takes to write a novel?  Here are six questions we can ask ourselves that'll shed light on the issue.  Also, when should a writer make an exception to a tried-and-true rule of writing?

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.

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Here are ten smaller techniques that'll improve our story, each maybe not big enough for a full segment but worthwhile to help make our story gripping and our sentences shine.  Also, here are thoughts about our story's ending; isn't HEA (happily-ever-after) a formula and cliche?  And: how to show rather than tell about the weather. 

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What do Elizabeth Bennett, Anne Shirley, Frodo Baggins, Jo March, Harry Potter, and Huckleberry Finn have in common?  Readers love them.  We can create such a character, one readers will long remember and maybe reread the storyl just to be with the character again.  Also, adverbs and adjectives can weaken sentences.  Here is why and how to avoid them.

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a start-to-finish course covering plot, characters, dialogue, scenes, sentence-level craft, and much more.  Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes.  The full class—all 20 episodes—is available now for a one-time price of forty-nine dollars.  If you want structured, concise guidance, click the Buy the Master Class link in the show notes to get started.

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We writers can train ourselves to peel the onion: to look more deeply at places and people, and so set forth our discoveries in lovely language in our stories.  Here's how the masters do it.  Also, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "action is character" is a strong technique for revealing our characters' personalities to readers, and I talk about "action is character" here.

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