Strong dialogue isn’t just about the words being said—it’s also about how those words are presented on the page.

If you’re newer to writing, there’s a lot to learn about storytelling—from big-picture techniques like show-don’t-tell to the more foundational aspects surrounding punctuation and capitalization. The technical part of writing isn’t very sexy, so we don’t talk much about it. But knowing those basics is super important if we want to write stories that contribute to the reader’s experience instead of interfering with it. And Angela and I want to make sure Writers Helping Writers offers help for authors at all stages and experience levels.

So today I’m starting a new 101 Series surrounding the foundational skills I see writers struggling with the most. Each post will cover a key element of fiction writing, and we’re starting off with dialogue mechanics—because even the most interesting conversations can fall flat if they aren’t written correctly. Poorly drafted dialogue can make the writing clunky, drag the pace, or cause confusion for readers, all of which can pull them out of the story. And no one wants that.

If you’ve ever struggled with where the punctuation goes (inside or outside the quotes?), when to use a comma vs. a period, or when to start a new paragraph in a scene of dialogue, you’re not alone, and this post is for you.

A Few Definitions

Before getting into the common dialogue mistakes, let’s identify three key elements of any good written conversation.

• Dialogue: The actual words spoken by a character. (“I can’t believe it.“)
• Dialogue Tag: A phrase that identifies the speaker. (“I can’t believe it,” she said.)
• Dialogue Beat: An action that accompanies the words being spoken. (“I can’t believe it.” Becca threw the bag of chips in the trash.)

Tags and beats are important because they’re a vital part of our real-life conversations. Including them breaks up the dialogue, creates rhythm, clarifies for readers who’s saying what, and makes the interaction between characters more authentic.

Now that we’re clear on the terminology associated with a passage of dialogue, let’s talk about the familiar stumbling blocks.

1. Proper Punctuation and Capitalization

First, let me start with a disclaimer that the rules I’ll be referencing are specific to American English. I know we have readers in Britain and Canada and many other places where English is used but the rules are slightly different. But because I don’t use the other versions and can’t speak to proper usage, and because the majority of our readers are using American English for their manuscripts and submissions, I’ll be focusing on that today.

So, in American English, always use double quotes for dialogue. Single quotes have their own purpose, but they shouldn’t be used as the main marks for dialogue.

When it comes to the rest of the punctuation for a line of dialogue…well, that depends on the sentence structure.

Complete Sentences with Tags

We know a complete sentence has a subject and verb that conveys a complete thought. In dialogue, you can determine if the sentence is complete by removing the tag or beat and just looking at the words inside the quotation marks.

When a complete sentence of dialogue is accompanied by a tag, the sentence should be punctuated as follows:

“I love these chips,” she said.

Because the tag is part of the sentence, the period goes at the end, after “said.” The dialogue portion ends with a comma (since it’s not the end of the sentence yet), and the tag begins with a lowercase letter because it’s in the middle of the sentence.

If the dialogue consists of a question instead of a statement, use a question mark instead of a comma inside the quotation marks. The period still goes at the end. And if you’re using someone’s name instead of a pronoun, it should be obviously capitalized.

“Do you like pickle chips?” Angela asked.
“Pickle chips make me barf,” Becca said.

A Complete Sentence with the Tag in the Middle

If a dialogue tag comes in the middle of a sentence, treat it as an interruption to the complete sentence, and use commas to separate it:

“I think,” she said, “barbecue flavor is the best.”

Note that the punctuation before the closing quotation mark in each segment is inside the marks. Also, because this is one complete sentence, the only capital letter is at the beginning. The exception would be if the tag contained a proper noun (Becca said); then the noun would be capitalized, too.

Sentences with Beats Instead of Tags

Beats are meant to stand alone and should usually be written in complete sentences themselves.

Angela shook her head. “I really don’t understand you.”

The beat is a complete sentence, and so is the dialogue. So both elements start with a capital and end with a period (or question mark or exclamation point as needed).

2. A Word About Thoughts

While we’re talking about different kinds of dialogue, let’s look quickly at thoughts. Because they aren’t spoken, they shouldn’t have quotation marks. However, the formatting is different depending on whether the thought is direct or indirect.

Direct Thoughts capture the character’s exact thoughts and are always italicized. Notice that any tags aren’t italicized (because the tag isn’t part of the character’s actual thought).

Please, no more, I thought.

Enough with the dad jokes.

Indirect Thoughts summarize what the character is thinking. Because they’re not exact thoughts, they aren’t italicized and are formatted like regular text.

She thought he was quite tasty.

He really hoped she wasn’t interested in him that way.

3. When Should a New Paragraph Start?

A common area of struggle in dialogue is knowing when to start a new paragraph. It’s an important question because if we get this wrong, the reader is confused about who’s saying and doing what:

“No car for a week?” Ivy’s voice squeaked into the stratosphere. “That’s ridiculous!” her brother said. “Everybody just calm down.”

But when we start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes, things become much clearer.

“No car for a week?” Ivy’s voice squeaked into the stratosphere.
“That’s ridiculous!” Jacob said.
“Everybody just calm down.”

This rule holds true for beats, too. If Character 2 does something while Character 1 is talking, that action needs to go into its own paragraph.

“So I hit a mailbox,” Ivy said. “Also, the shepherd in the church’s nativity scene is now sheep-less.”
Her mother closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.
“And I may have taken out Mr. Henderson’s azaleas—but that totally wasn’t my fault!”

4. Interruptions and Hesitations

Real-life dialogue is full of interruptions, stops and starts, and people talking over each other. Your characters’ conversations should be no different. Luckily, the punctuation for each of these is pretty simple.

Use Em Dashes for Interruptions

When your character’s being interrupted, use an em dash (—) inside the quotation marks to show their words are being cut off. This is true whether the interruption comes in the form of someone’s words or actions.

Her mom’s eyebrows shot upward. “The azaleas? Ivy—”
“It was a squirrel,” Jacob sputtered. “A deranged, kamikaze squirrel that fell out of a tree and stumbled right into the road. It was rabid, foaming at the mouth—”
Ivy shoved him. “You’re not helping.”

Use an Ellipse for Hesitations

Interruptions indicate a clean break, with the person’s speech abruptly stopping. Hesitations are more, well…hesitant. If there’s a pause in your character’s speech, or if their dialogue trails off slowly rather than bluntly, use an ellipse.

“Seemed deranged,” Jacob mumbled. “Stumbling…middle of traffic…” He rubbed the back of his neck and decided Ivy could fight her own battles.

Clean Dialogue Makes for Stronger Writing and Easier Reading

The mechanics of dialogue may not be the most exciting thing to study but mastering them makes your story easier to read and understand. The good news is that, like most elements of writing, the more you incorporate proper punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing into your dialogue, the easier it gets. Then you can move on to higher level techniques that will make your characters’ conversations authentic, engaging, and full of added depth—techniques that we’ll discuss in our next 101 post.

For more help with the nitty-gritty of dialogue (and other) mechanics, give English Grammar for Dummies a try.
(affiliate link)

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Writing 101: Dialogue Mechanics appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Across the board, writers need help to stay focused so their best work ends up on the page. So with this in mind, I have a roundup of resources that can help you be more productive and write stronger fiction, faster. Even better, they all have a free trial or version so you can test them out before investing, or they are a free resource altogether.

Get Focused

Brain FM: I purchased a lifetime license years ago and have never looked back, and why? Because it helps me focus on the task at hand. This app plays special neural phase-locking music that engages with your brain to put you in a state of focus, relaxation, or sleep, whichever your goal is. It starts to work in 15 minutes, shutting out distractions…which we can be prone to as writers. If you’d like to try it free, use my member’s code to get a free month.

Freedom: On Facebook a bit too much? Constantly dipping in and out of your email box? Do notification pings and banners break your train of thought? If so, you aren’t alone. This is another product I have used with Chrome because an unending stream of information via the internet is a blessing and a curse. So, if you want to claw back your keyboard, distraction-free, try this app and website blocker. (There’s a free trial).

Feed Your Creative Brain

Reverse Dictionary: Sometimes as I tappity-tap, the right word eludes me, driving me bonkers. It doesn’t matter how many throw pillows I move or cushions I upend on my mental couch, I can’t grasp the words that will convey the feeling or mood I want to build in a scene. The reverse dictionary has saved me so many times as you can type in something abstract like “fear” and it will pull up a cascade of words related to fear. This almost always triggers an idea and boom, I’m writing again. This is a free site, so bookmark it.

Descriptionari: If you get inspired by reading through the descriptions of others, you will love this site. Enter in a keyword like “Tree” and a host of user-written descriptions will pop up. Clearly I’m not suggesting you borrow or alter any descriptions (that’s plagiarism) but if reading a few helps to unlock your own imagination so you can write something fresh, check it out.

One Stop for Writers: I can’t discuss creativity and not bring up One Stop for Writers. Between having the largest fiction-centric Description Database ever created, a powerful Idea Generator, customizable Worldbuilding Surveys, and a Character Builder (which can produce a Character Arc Blueprint!), you will never be at a loss for what to write next. And that’s just some of the site’s tools.

Becca and I are writers and coaches, so we know what writers need most. That’s why we created One Stop. So if you want to create magnetic stories and become a stronger writer at the same time, put One Stop in your toolbox. If you like, give the free trial a go.

Clean Up Your Prose

Grammarly: This is a useful tool for all sorts of editing and usage fixes, whether you are writing emails, blog posts, social media updates or polishing your novel. It integrates with many programs, going where you go and will prompt you with fixes as you type (which I really like). The paid version has a lot of great features including a plagiarism checker, handy for us writers as we read a lot and would not want to unintentionally borrow something. The free option is helpful too, and easy to set up.

Natural Reader: This handy text-to-speech app is terrific for self-editing. Our eyes may skim over flaws in our writing, but the ear rarely lies. Find typos and disconnects in tone or cadence by listening as your story is read to you. The free version allows for 20 minutes of reading, so that’s a nice chunk of time to do some prose polishing.

ProWritingAid: This site is another favorite of mine. Like Grammarly, PWA takes good care of you on the editing side of things but it has analytical reports that will be of special interest to writers and boasts a stellar blog packed with articles on how to improve your storytelling. It also comes with lots of integrations, so you can use it in the program that you like to write in. Give the free trial a spin.

Never Stop Learning

To make a sustainable career out of writing, learning is key. One thing that divides professional writers from amateurs is the refusal to settle for writing that is “good enough.” Pros expect that their writing will evolve and they look forward to absorbing more knowledge.

The great thing about being a writer these days is that help is everywhere. Here are a few extra-special resources to take in.

K.M. Weiland’s Story Structure Database: Stick your hands into the gooey innards of famous books and movies and see how their story structure works! SO HELPFUL.

Jami Gold’s Worksheets for Writers: Want to learn about beat sheets, critiquing, revision, and more?

Become best friends with this page.

Story Mastery: I’m sure there’s someone that you fangirl or fanboy over, amirite?

Well, for me it’s Michael Hauge. If you want to delve into the deeper aspects of writing craft, check out Story Mastery. Start with the articles, but trust me, also pick up his Hero’s 2 Journeys and check out some of his other videos, including his book that shows you how to apply storytelling skills to marketing. It’s amazing what fiction writers can learn from screenwriters!

One Stop for Writers Tip Sheets: If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you know Becca and I love to pass on small lessons that make a BIG difference. Especially when it comes to description we want you thinking carefully about every element and detail, and how to squeeze as much storytelling juice from every word in your story.

One Stop for Writers has a giant depository of tip sheets and checklists free to download and share. So start clicking that mouse and save these valuable tip sheets to your computer to reference later or print out.

What tools will you invest in this year? Let me know in the comments!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Tools to Help You Become a Powerful Writer appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Writing a novel is flipping difficult. It often takes years to complete your first novel (and even more years after that to write a good one). You heard that right — writers’ first books are usually a hot mess. That is because, as untested authors, we don’t yet know how to write a book. 

On average, most writers pursuing traditional publication write four novels prior to getting a literary agent. In other words, it takes most writers writing a few books to get the hang of things. 

If you are reading this, you are likely curious about how you can shorten your learning curve and write a better book more quickly. Let’s talk about the eleven ways you can improve your novel-writing skills today. 

1. Acknowledge That You Don’t Know Everything and Your Writing Isn’t Perfect

One surefire sign of a newbie writer is thinking your writing is perfection. Nothing anyone can say is applicable because if they have a critique, it means they don’t understand your story. (And not that your story needs improving — certainly not that!) 

I was there, friends. Once upon a time, I thought my books were the next NY Times bestsellers and ready for publication — often after completing the first draft. 

As I’ve said many times before on my YouTube channel, iWriterly: first drafts are not final drafts. According to Terry Pratchet: “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

Therefore, be open-minded to the fact that while you might have a lot of great elements within your story, you have many drafts ahead of you to polish your story and get it ready for the eyes of readers. 

2. Research How to Write a Good Book

As newbie writers, we can’t hope to figure out how to write a book on our own. Or, at least, most of us can’t. Therefore, you will want to do some research to learn about how to write a good book. (HINT: It’s about more than just grammar!) For example, some topics you might want to research include:

• Plot structure
• Character arcs
• How to give a character a unique voice
• Pacing 

Here are a few resources you could check out: 

• Nonfiction books about how to write a novel
• Free articles and blogs
• YouTube: iWriterly, for example, is in a niche called AuthorTube where aspiring and published authors talk about how to write books
• Online courses (Writers Helping Writers has a list of recommendations in the Online Learning Centers section of their Resources for Writers page)
• Formal education at a college or university 
• Fiction books by the greats in your genre

Keep in mind that many of these options are free. You don’t have to immediately pull out your wallet. However, if you are going to pay for a product or service, always research whether or not the person teaching the course has applicable experience and is an expert in their field. 

3. Consider Outlining Your Book before You Write It 

(One Stop for Writers Story Maps)

If you haven’t yet heard of plotters and pantsers (or architects and gardeners), allow me to enlighten you. A plotter (also called an “architect”) is a writer who plans out their story prior to writing it. A pantser (someone who “flies by the seat of their pants” — also called a “gardener”) is someone who doesn’t plan prior to writing. They write and see where their muse takes them.

There is no right or wrong way to go about writing. However, a pantser has a lot more work to do in the editing phase because they didn’t plan out anything in advance, such as big plot beats. Therefore, consider checking out things like beat sheets or different types of plot structure prior to writing your book. (Save the Cat! Writes a Novel and Jami Gold’s blog have a lot of beat sheets writers use.) You don’t need to plan out your novel in advance, but it might be worth jotting down the big plot points you want to reach at certain places in your story. 

4. Work with Critique Partners and Beta Readers 

Critique partners and beta readers provide feedback on unpublished manuscripts. However, their roles are slightly different.

• Critique partners are writers who provide feedback on your work, usually by request (to exchange chapters or full manuscripts).
• Beta readers are people who read your manuscript as a reader first (rather than a writer). Most of the time, beta readers are not writers.

Without outside feedback, we can’t improve the stories. This is due to a writer’s blindness to our own story’s flaws from being too close to it. We can see it so perfectly in our heads, but it doesn’t necessarily translate well onto the page. It’s the job of a good critique partner and/or beta reader to read a story and provide feedback and suggestions for areas of improvement — thereby helping us make the best story possible. 

For more information on finding critique partners or beta readers, check out Critique Circle or look for local groups via the blogs for different genres, such as SCBWI or RWA.

5. Be Open to Critiques/Feedback on Your Work

It’s not just about getting feedback from critique partners and beta readers. If you are not open to making changes to your story, then getting feedback is a pointless exercise. Do your best to look at your story objectively and listen to what critique partners and beta readers are saying. 

6. Look Closely at Your Weakest Points

Did your critique partners and beta readers seem to have a consensus about what aspects of your writing could be improved? Those are most likely your “weak spots” as a writer.

For me, I’ve always struggled with info-dumps. Most recently, I’ve struggled with too much internalization (vs. dramatization). Simply knowing where you aren’t strong as a writer is helpful so you can teach yourself to spot the issues — perhaps even before you make them. 

Listen to what the consensus is for feedback. There is always the outlier — one critique partner or beta reader who has a completely different take on your story — but if there is a consensus, pay close attention to it. It more than likely is an issue you will want to address.

7. Edit the Book on Your Own MANY Times

As I mentioned earlier, the first draft isn’t the final draft. Most authors edit their books dozens of times before it gets to the version you see on the bookshelf. Personally, I edit my manuscript two to five times (front to back) by myself before sharing it with critique partners. After that, I work with critique partners and beta readers through many drafts (and self-edit in between).

Consider working with more critique partners and beta readers after you have edited your book and implemented the previous round of feedback. Ideally, you will want to work with them on several drafts of the book. The exact number of times beta readers and critique partners read the manuscript is going to be up to you and them. 

8. Brush up On Grammar

While good grammar doesn’t make a good story, bad grammar can pull readers out of one. As such, you will want to be able to write with proper punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, and so on. 

9. Read Books by the Greats within Your Genre

Dissect the books you love. Try to determine what it is you enjoyed about them and what that author excels at. In addition, think about ways you can emulate (or perhaps imitate) some of those skills in your own writing (without plagiarizing!!). 

10. Write Often to Sharpen Your Skills

According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours (or approximately 10 years) of practice to become an expert. While you don’t necessarily need to be writing books for 10 years before you are deemed “ready,” you do need to put in the time to practice your writing skills in order to become a better writer. 

11. Write the Next Book 

Going along with our previous point, the best way to be a better author is to write many books. That is because the more books you write, the better you will get at it. 

From my experience, writing a book isn’t something you can teach. Sure, you can learn the principles of writing a good book or learn how other authors write theirs. But you must learn how you as an author operate through the process. How you do it is going to be different from other people’s process. Therefore, the only way to glean that knowledge is through experience. 

Happy writing, friends!

MEG LATORRE

Meg LaTorre is a writer, YouTuber (iWriterly), creator of the free query critique platform, Query Hack, co-host of the Publishable show, blogger, and she formerly worked at a literary agency. She also has a background in magazine publishing, medical/technical writing, and journalism. To learn more about Meg, visit her website, follow her on Twitter and Instagram, sign up for her monthly newsletter, and subscribe to her YouTube channel, iWriterly.

The post Improve Your Novel Writing: 11 Tips For Newbies appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

It’s a sad fact, but most writers don’t have a basement full of money, meaning we have to think carefully about where we spend our money and why.

Investing in our career is smart, when we can afford it. There are infinite workshops, conferences, resource books, memberships, courses, and coaching available to us. All can help us develop our skills, better understand storytelling, and navigate the business side of being an author. But what they don’t help with is a question that plagues us more than any other:

“Is what I’ve written any good?”

No matter how many books are under our belt, the same worries about quality surface.

Am I fooling myself that I have what it takes?

Did I just get lucky before?

Is this the book that ends my career?

Impostor’s Syndrome is always there ready to kneecap our self confidence.

On the plus side, I think wobbly self-confidence can also push us to do our best and it encourages us to seek feedback. (And we should. I recently posted about the importance of feedback, which is a powerful way to crowdsource opinions to help answer the question above.)

Knowing what type of feedback we need and when, and what help we should pay for and what we shouldn’t helps us make sure we’re sticking to the budget. So I’ve put together a list of people to seek when you need feedback, and share the different free vs. paid options.

Free Help For Writers

There are many different ways to get help as a writer without breaking the bank. The more you do on your own, the less you’ll end up paying when you’re ready to take your manuscript to the publication stage.

Alpha Readers are the first people to see your draft, and act as a sounding board as to whether the story holds together at a high level or not. They understand the writing will be rough and aren’t there for a quality check, just to help find glaring plot holes, underdeveloped characters, logic gaps, and other story problems that will need massaging to give the story good bones. In some cases, alpha readers are brought in as the story is being written, so they can weigh in on the story’s direction as it is being developed. Overall, most writers don’t use alphas and wait for beta feedback. More below.

More on alpha readers here.

Beta Readers are typically your first readers, people who may be writers but often are not, rather they are potential readers, people who enjoy the type of books you write and they won’t let a personal relationship with you get in the way of offering constructive feedback. They give “overall” feedback on the story (usually when it’s in an early draft stage so you know if it works or not), and will tell you what pulled them out of the reading experience, like a lack of emotional connection to a character, a confusing plot, etc.

You don’t need to pay for beta reads (although there are some services that do offer experienced editorial feedback, so do your research to make sure they are legitimate if you choose to use them.) You can find readers by asking people that you interact with online if they would like to beta read for you, or ask unbiased family or friends who read your genre.

• More on beta readers here.
• Here’s how to be an ethical beta reader.
• Grab this excellent Beta Reader Worksheet from Jami Gold.
• To organize feedback, try out BetaBooks (they have a free trial).
• Bonus: BetaBooks has a Book Club feature that matches books with readers.
• Did you know there are many Beta Reader groups on Facebook?

Critique Partners are those who will workshop a book with you, meaning they read each chapter and offer your feedback on any (or all) story elements that you want their opinion on. I recommend running through your book chapter by chapter at least once by other writers (yes, writers — having more than one partner means different perspectives and strengths are applied to your story).

Critiquing is free, but based on give and take: someone critiques you, and you critique them. This is work, but work well worth doing. Some writers try to find critters for a one-way relationship but this shortchanges them on a valuable opportunity to improve. Why? Because when you critique others, you learn a ton about what works and what doesn’t in a story. And once you “see” a problem in another person’s manuscript it becomes much easier to spot the same issue in your own stories. These epiphanies are golden opportunities to grow your skills quickly!

Critiquing shouldn’t cost you, although there are services who do charge, so again, if you go that route, do your research to make sure they are legit and are worth the return on investment (ROI). To find critique partners, ask your writer’s network or join a site like the Critique Circle. This is where Becca and I met and we have both workshopped many stories there. Other ones to check out might be Inked Voices, Nathan Bransford’s Connect with a Critique Partner, and Scribophile.

• More about critique partners
• How to know you’re in a good critique group
• Six rules to keep critique partnerships golden
• How to evaluate critique feedback
• Our 2-level critique checklist (life changing!)

Full Swap Partners are writers who are looking for a full novel read. Typically this happens when a writer has already had their manuscript workshopped extensively and they now need fresh eyes to have a look before they take the next step, either querying it or to hiring an editor to self-publish it.

Full swaps are about viewing the story as a whole rather than line editing, and passing on honest opinions afterward about the book. Swaps are often between writers who are more advanced and write in the same or similar genres. Typically the writers involved do not steer the other in any way so that they are not specifically looking for issues or problems as they read. This way it’s easier to see if improvements made during past revisions were effective. After the read is complete and the critiquer submits their impressions about the book, and the author may send along follow up questions on specific areas if they wish.

To find a writer to swap with, ask your network. Think about the forums you belong to, the social media writing groups you interact most with, and the people you trust. It can be beneficial to swap with people you don’t know because they will spare your feelings, but always research first. Ask questions about the person (and the story) to ensure it’s a good match. If you are seeking swaps as you move toward publication, you’ll want to make sure the other person’s work is of the same quality and that they are a skilled writer as reading a full manuscript is a bigger time commitment. No money changes hands for a swap.

Necessary Writing Help that Will (Probably) Cost Money

Keeping costs down is every writer’s goal but the trade-off should not be quality. A poorly written book will not sell, and this will only lead to self-doubt and disillusionment about making writing a career. Don’t be afraid to invest and pay for the help you need.

Freelance Developmental Editing is something to look into if you are self-publishing, but I don’t recommend it if you are trying to traditionally publish. Why? Two reasons. First, the publisher will assign an editor to you and they will ask for edits that align with their house style and vision, overriding any edits you paid for. Second, and I know this might sound harsh, but your writing should be strong enough to gain a contract without a professional editor shaping it.

I say this because you’ll be expected to follow editorial directions and return quality work after a contract is signed. So while all writers do need an editor, we also need to bring our own skills to the table. If a writer leans too much on a freelancer so they can shop a book, it could leave them in a sticky predicament if their writing skills are not up to the task of following editorial directions once under contract. It’s best to apply yourself as a writer to learn the craft, taking advantage of the many blogs, books, courses, and workshops available to you, often for free. Then workshop your book extensively with critique partners. This, and your own abilities, should be enough to get your book where it needs to be to interest an agent and editor. However, if time is an issue and money is not (and sometimes this is the case), then hiring an editor might be right for you even if you do plan on traditionally publishing.

One important thing to note: if you are offered a deal by an agent or an editor on the condition that you pay for editing, this is a scam.

If you self-publish, you should hire a professional editor. No matter how strong we are at writing there will always be gaps in our knowledge. A professional freelance editor can help with this and because the story isn’t theirs, they also have the distance we lack.

There are different types of editors, so you should research what you need for your story. This is one part of publishing where paying is sort of unavoidable, so just make sure you choose someone who is professional and experienced in your genre.

Costs will vary, but if the price is too low, be aware that sometimes you get what you pay for. Always ask for a sample edit first so you can see their style and skill level, and don’t be afraid to ask for references from past clients.

• A breakdown of the different types of editing (with examples)
• Looking for an editor? Scroll down to “Editing Services.”
• 3 Signs it might be time to stop editing a manuscript
• How to boost your self-editing superpowers

Proofreading is something I recommend. You can pay for proofreading (Becca and I do) but it is also possible you might know someone who is very skilled in grammar and punctuation that may be willing to help you for free. Or, you can try to use a tool like ProWritingAid (good options for writers going the traditional route if their grammar and proofing skills need support).

Tempted on skipping this type of editing? I wouldn’t. If you traditionally publish, too many errors will pull the agent or editor out of the reading experience as they assess your story. And if you self-publish, readers will ding you on reviews if they notice too many mistakes. We are often blind to our own typos and grammar missteps, so another set of eyes can be really helpful. And, if you are a Canadian like me writing for the American market (or vice-versa) there will be all sorts of “isms” that a professional proofreader will catch. (Michael Dunne loves turning all my greys to gray and neighbour to neighbor!)

TIP: If you are interested in hiring a proofreader, ask for a sample page or two. We did this with 5 proofreaders, seeding certain mistakes into a sample, to see who would catch them all. Only one did, so be aware that not all proofreaders are created equal.

• Using text-to-speech as a self-editing tool
• ProWritingAid (free and paid options)
• Michael Dunne, proofreader (this is who we use)

A one-on-one Writing Coach is another option for feedback. While Becca and I are writing coaches we focus on groups, not individuals. A one-on-one coach is someone who will help you through the process of writing a novel by being your sounding board, and by offering you feedback, education, and keeping you accountable.

There are various places to find coaches. Many authors have a side business where they offer coaching because they have been through the book writing process. There are also highly professional coaching firms with a professional coaching team. The one I recommend whenever asked is Author Accelerator as I know the skill level of many of their coaches, and I love the fact that they partner each client with a specific coach based on the writer’s needs, genre, and style.

One-on-one coaching is often a higher price investment. But, what a writer learns while in a program will help them accelerate their writing skills exponentially. The knowledge they end up with can be applied to every novel moving forward. So for writers who are able to afford this investment, it’s well worth considering.

• What does a Book Coach do
• Watch a Book Coach in action in this Character Clinic replay
• Author Accelerator

Looking for MORE help? Check out this MASTER LIST OF WRITING & PUBLISHING RESOURCES.

The wonderful thing about choosing writing as a career is that there are many, many ways we can steer our own growth and development, and this in turn helps us develop our Writer’s Intuition, which lets us better evaluate feedback and view our own writing objectively. Opening ourselves up to learning at every step means each novel will get a little easier. It’s hard work, but that’s also how you know it is work worth doing.

Happy writing, all!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Story Feedback: Free and Paid Options for Writers appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

When I was a Masters of Arts student studying English and Creative Writing, one of the biggest issues I had with my writing is that my peers told me that while I chose beautiful words, there were simply too many of them. Not knowing which words to cut, I simply chalked it up to that they must have been unaccustomed to reading historical fiction. I needed those words to world-build.

Fast-forward two years to my first MFA residency week. I was exciting about the piece I’d submitted—a short story that fits into the historical mystery subgenre. My descriptions were nothing short of poetic. At the time, I thought that’s what literary fiction was. I thought if my descriptions jumped off the page like a poem, then I’d hit the mark. The main problem with this approach was that I was wrong.

(For the record, literary fiction is fiction that’s driven by character development; while plot is important, it’s not the propelling force of the work.)

Understanding where my definition of literary fiction was lacking helped me get closer to fixing my painfully poetic prose. Yes, literary fiction can often move at a slower pace. One way to slow the pace of a story is to describe more, to expand the exposition…but I was losing readers’ interest in the process, and therefore failing as a storyteller.

It wasn’t until I received my first feedback letter from my mentor that my solution began to gel in my mind. She’d addressed the first paragraph of my thesis, which began with this sentence:

“I slid numb-legged from the saddle, sinking knee-deep into snow, and settled one gloved hand against my horse’s neck; his withers jumped and trembled, though my hand was too cold to feel the bunching muscle.”

Re-reading this sentence now makes me gag because it’s littered with adjectives and adverbs that make me stumble toward the period, which acts like a piece of cheese for a mouse in a maze. That’s how I feel at the end of this sentence, grateful that I survived it and famished for the effort it took.

I was trying to show the reader that my protagonist was cold, that it was winter, and that this horse is nervous but possesses vitality. All my mentor did was suggest that there were too many adjectives and adverbs in my first paragraph—and throughout the first chapter—and that I should work on cutting back.

I couldn’t decide which adjectives and adverbs to cut, so I decided to take a risk, and I cut all of them.

Using the sentence above, my next draft read like this:

“I slid from the saddle, sinking into the snow. His withers jumped and his muscles bunched under my hand.”

This revision is much more compact. The world is cold—cold enough for deep snow. The horse still reacts to my protagonist’s dismount, and I’ve conveyed the animal’s strength. I also ended up splitting the sentence in two because I thought about the way people tend to breathe in the cold. They don’t take deep breaths, because the air is cold. By shortening my sentences, I evoked that feeling without having to say it.

I expected that removing all the adjectives and adverbs from my text would tighten my writing, but I didn’t think about how it would make it more active and exciting. By removing these modifiers, I had to think more about what my protagonist was doing, what his horse was doing, and how my protagonist felt.

By allowing myself to focus on those considerations, throughout the story I found better opportunities to develop Barnaby the horse as a character, instead of just an object to show off my protagonist’s connection to horses and the inauspicious start to his present mission.

Does this mean we should cut all modifiers? No. Using adjectives that provide a strong impact is fine. In my case, I found that in order to determine which ones were important, and fit my style as a writer, I had to dump them all first. I admit I felt a bit ashamed for letting my writing get so bogged down—especially with adverbs. I knew better!

But the lesson remains the same. Sometimes you have to take the risk and strip your writing to its bones, like taking a house down to studs, before you can build it back up again.

Do you use too many modifiers? What technique have you used to pare back? Let us know in the comments!

Margaret McNellis is an MFA student, teaching assistant, author, and freelance writer/editor.

She blogs and podcasts about writing and teaching at http://mmcnellis.com. Connect with her on Twitter @mcnelliswrites or on Facebook.

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Stripping Down My Prose: Risking the Removal of Adjectives appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Hi everyone–I hope you had a terrific weekend and are in the mood to learn. Today I’m handing over the blog keys to Rachel Starr Thomson, one of the editors who have jointly written 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing. I’m excited about this venture of Rachel’s as the book  features more than sixty detailed Before and After examples of flawed and corrected passages to help authors learn to spot flaws in their writing. Seeing real examples is a great way to elevate your writing.

The Fatal Flaw of Underwriting

Fundamentally, when we write a story, we want to connect with readers’ emotions. Engage emotion. Elicit it. Give readers a story they don’t just learn but one they feel and will never forget.

Yet emotion is one of the story elements most commonly underwritten—and underwriting in general tends to harm emotional connection the most.

Underwriting is just what it sounds like: it’s the failure to put things on the page that need to be there. When somebody picks up a gun and fires it off, and we didn’t know there was a gun on stage, that’s underwriting. When someone makes a decision completely out of the blue, leaving us not so much surprised as confused, that’s underwriting. When a story just plain doesn’t make sense, it’s probably underwritten.

And when no matter how hard you try, you just can’t give a damn about the characters? Most likely underwriting is at fault.

Why We Underwrite

The dirty little secret, though? Underwriting is sometimes (often) a direct result of following editorial advice like “show, don’t tell,” and “make sure your scenes are active and full of conflict” and “don’t info dump or fill your scenes with backstory.”

As an editor who also writes stuff (a lot of stuff), allow me to eat humble pie and tell you that sometimes we push you to strip so much out of your story that it ends up gasping for breath, struggling to hang on to a shred of character or conflict that anyone cares about.

I’ve been there. I once misinterpreted “show don’t tell” so horrendously that I thought it meant everything had to be conveyed through action and dialogue alone, and I was never allowed to include thoughts or backstory. Talk about gutting a book!

Connecting

Underwriting hurts emotional connection so badly because it turns everything 2D. We lose contact with really essential parts of our stories, settings, and characters when we fail to include what needs to be there.

In particular, these three often-underwritten areas can make or break connection:

Process. When your character goes from decision point A (“I will not go to the ball”) to decision point B (“I will go to the ball”), and we didn’t see any of the decision process, it’s impossible to feel invested in the question. The Rule of Three is helpful here: in a decision of midlevel importance (meaning it’s more important than “I think I’ll brush my teeth” and less important than “I think I’ll marry the hero after all”), show three stages of the decision-making progress.

I will not go to the ball.

1. But then I just learned my best friend is going.
2. If my best friend goes, she will exceed my popularity.
3. If she exceeds my popularity, I will lose the interest of the prince.

I will go to the ball after all.

Reaction. In my clients’ manuscripts, it’s amazing how often something will happen that ought to get a reaction from the POV character … and it doesn’t. I mean, somebody’s mother might have just died, and we get crickets. When you’re in POV you always always always have to react. Even if you don’t react, it has to be because you’re being so darn deliberate about not reacting. If the temperature drops, shiver. If someone dies, cry. If someone says something provocative, have an opinion about it.

Many times, I’ve had a client return a manuscript after revision, and simply by adding reaction—usually in the form of a thought, shown through deep POV—they had absolutely transformed the story. A character who responds to things is alive, and through that character, the story can be experienced at far greater depth.

The Thoughts Behind Emotion. This is a biggie, and it’s where “show don’t tell” can be so incredibly damaging when misunderstood. We know not to write “She was angry.” So instead, many writers revert to writing “body emotions”: “She ground her teeth.” “She turned red.” This makes for a lot of odd and sometimes unclear images, but it doesn’t connect us to the character’s emotion at all. We see her feeling something; we don’t feel it. The best way to convey emotion, it turns out, is to write thoughts. We feel in response to things we’re thinking. So do our characters. If you can show what they are thinking, nine times out of ten you can make an emotional connection with your readers.

Words are the stuff of our worlds. Without words to translate into vivid images, actions, thought processes, emotions, settings, and more, none of those things can exist. So underwriting is actually as great a danger to a novelist as overwriting—perhaps even a greater one.

Thankfully, underwriting not irreparable. In fact, when we go and fill in the gaps, we might just discover the missing heart of our own stories.

Rachel Starr Thomson is the author of eighteen novels. As an editor and writing coach, she has helped writers achieve their best work for over a decade—so she’s thrilled to contribute to The Writer’s Toolbox series, which gives fiction writers everything they need to know to create compelling, solid stories, with 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing.

You can check out all Rachel’s books at her website.

Which of these three areas of underwriting do you struggle with? Let us know in the comments!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post The Fatal Flaw of Underwriting appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Metaphors. Most of us know we should use them, that they’re a good way to describe, but not everyone has a solid understanding of what they are. Seeing as metaphors are one of the most powerful communication tools between writer and reader, this is one English lesson worth reviewing!

Wiki states: A metaphor is a figure of speech that constructs an analogy between two things or ideas; the analogy is conveyed by the use of a metaphorical word in place of some other word.

I think of it as matching two things in a meaningful way. While a simile gives a likened comparison (object A is like object B), a metaphor states that object A is Object B. The full moon was a glistening pearl in a midnight shell. Love is a teddy bear clutched in a sleeping child’s arms. Mom’s sex talk was an evangelist’s rant about lust being the tool of Satan.

Each metaphor gives a clear image of what the writer wants to get across. It should allude to atmosphere, mood, emotion or characterize. In the case above, LOVE is not a passionate teenage embrace (volatile, emotional), it is not the familiar touch of age-spotted hands (enduring, comforting). It is the teddy bear clutched in a sleeping child’s arms–innocent, unconditional, protective, beautiful. The reader experiences LOVE exactly as we want them to. This is is why metaphor usage is so powerful. The analogy you choose doesn’t only send an instant picture to the reader, it can also show them what you want them to FEEL.

So how do we build strong metaphors?

1) Write down the thing you want to create a metaphor for. It might be an object, person, emotion, a descriptive element, concept or physical action.  (Let’s work with “Winter“)

2) Write down several descriptive details, attributes, or free associations about Winter. For example, cold, death, frozen, snow, ice, white, blanketing, clean, fresh, frost, blizzard, biting wind, renewal, isolation

3) Think about the emotion or atmosphere you want to convey in the scene and the meaning you want to get across. Light and whimsical? Dark and foreboding? Symbolic? Humorous?

4) Create a list of possible details that have #2 in common while keeping #3 in mind. If you need to, start with a cliche to get your brain going, and then branch out into fresher territory. For this example, let’s say we want to go with a metaphor that will convey winter is dark and foreboding.

Winter was…

…a linen shroud covering an earthy corpse (#2 the look of snow)
…the lonely howl of a wolf, separated from his mate (#2 isolation)
…the final icy exhale of a man on his deathbed (#2 death, endings)

Each of these brings an image to mind that reinforces a dark aspect of winter: death, being alone, finality. Metaphors often work best as a punchline of a descriptive passage, the final thought that summarizes the whole.

5) Choose the one that fits what you want to get across the most.

Metaphors are not only useful to show emotion and atmosphere, they can also work well when you need to describe something yet be economical with words. Equating a dance partner to a headless chicken in his death throws is often more effective more than a paragraph detailing his twitchy dance moves.

Like all things, metaphors should be used in moderation. But if you’re struggling with how to show, want to get more meaning out of your description or want to add a level of sophistication to your writing style, make use of strong metaphors!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post How to Craft a Strong Metaphor appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘The writing is flat.’ The question is, what does that really mean?

Flat writing is where the prose lies dead on the page. Descriptions, characters and stakes are conveyed in such a bland manner that the reader ceases to care. Either the writer lacks the confidence in their writing style to get their ideas across in a way that holds shape, or they need to work on their ability to bring that texture and balance into their manuscript. Flat wordsmithing can disguise itself in many forms, so this is something we all need to be on the lookout for.

Descriptive Woes

Description is the writer’s most powerful tool in translating what they see in their head onto the page. Not only does it breathe life into settings, characters and emotions, it is one area where honing our skills IS A MUST. Flat description often happens when the writer doesn’t strive hard enough to utilize the five senses.

Sensory feedback also comes to us in every breath, movement, sound, and taste. Why should writing be any less dimensional? Tastes, textures, sounds, smells…well anyone who uses this blog regularly knows my descriptive thesaurus collections are all about utilizing these senses in addition to sight. When describing, take advantage of the range of senses. The reward is a much more vivid experience for the reader.

Poor Word Choice

Repeat after me: THE THESAURUS IS YOUR FRIEND. Strong verbs. Accurate modifiers. Stay away from walking fast if you’re really sprinting or lurching, don’t drop a cup of juice when you can have it smash against the floor and spray yellow ropes of liquid across the cupboard.

Always strive to find the strongest, most apt words to describe…while remaining firmly seated in the narrator’s range of knowledge and speech and true to your voice. In other words, if the POV character/narrator is a 10 year old girl living on a farm, she’s not going to sound like a Harvard graduate when describing the world around her.

And while using that thesaurus, remember it needs to be used in moderation. One or two strong descriptors are better than a paragraph of purple prose.

Over Baked Ideas

Cliches. Well-worn descriptions. White as a bone? A rosebud smile? Breaking up with your BF under an umbrella in a rainstorm? Two words: RUN AWAY.

Often the first thing that comes to mind is a well-worn description or something that could border on the cliche. Don’t feel bad about this! I doubt there’s a writer out there who hasn’t penned a cliche during the heat of the first draft. But anything worth doing is worth doing well, and that’s what revision is all about. If you spot something that feels a little too familiar, stretch yourself into brainstorming a new way to get this description across to the reader.

Grammar, Punctuation, Style

I’d say probably 90% of writers have a passionate dislike for these three words. I think of them as a necessary evil, like taxes and politicians. A working knowledge of sentence structure, punctuation and grammar is important. Nothing stops a reader faster than poor wording, run on sentences or bad grammar. And spelling? We’re all guilty of a missed typo now and again, but no manuscript should go without an affectionate rub down via Spell Check.

Some writers use the excuse that rules are ‘made to be broken’ to get out of the tedium of learning P & G. The concept of rule breaking is filled with debate–can we? Should we? Certainly. Done right, the writer can achieve great things. Done wrong, they look like a hack. Bottom line: know grammar and punctuation inside and out before attempting to break a rule and have a good reason for doing so.

To avoid flat writing, be aware of sentence structure. Sentences with little or no variation (all long and unwieldy, or too choppy) can ruin the experience for the reader. The good news on this one is, the more you practice, the more that variation becomes second nature.

Under-developed Ideas, Characters and General Vagueness

Know the manuscript. If the writer doesn’t know their characters very well or is a little hazy on what they are doing or feeling, it shows. If the writer tunes out during a passage of writing, you can bet the reader will too. Look for flat places during re-reads and spiff them up through development and better description.

Can you think of other ways the writing can appear flat?

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Seven Deadly Novel Writing Sins: Flat Wordsmithing appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.