Revising for Tension
Are you putting pressure on your characters so that they’re forced to change? Do quiet characters have moments when they’re about to explode? Adding tension to a novel often means that you must deepen the characters’ intensity of emotion. Sometimes, you must even write new scenes to replace those that are just marking time. I’ll […]
Tension: Two Easy Ways to Pack Tension in a Scene
Tension is a sensation in the body. Fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals are hardwired to be on the alert. Possums play possum. An elk herd circles the calves. Octopi retreat into grottoes. Gorillas pound their chests. And, as for humans, what signs of danger raise our hackles? When we see movement out of the corner […]
Story Starters Keep Your Story Ideas from Going Stale
Story-starters are the key to a writer’s long-term success, but what are story starters and how can you turn them into actual stories? Essentially, story starters are the notebooks writers keep about the things they observe in the world. These journals don’t gaze at the writer’s navel. They’re other-centered, outward looking, and curious about all […]
Dialogue and Tension | Bringing Scenes To Life
Dialogue and tension go hand-in-hand. If the dialogue sounds fake or flat, you will not grab readers and compel them to read your book. In this post I’m going to give you four ways to revise dialogue and increase tension. I want to shine a spotlight on dramatic scenes. Scenes are where the reader forms […]
Storyboard Your Novel | A Road Map To The Climax
In Hollywood a storyboard helps directors plan their projects. Storyboards provide a quick and easy way to visualize the ups and downs of the plot. Writers working on scripts use storyboards to make sure the “beats” (key story developments) fall where they should. Fiction writers can use a storyboard to imagine where a story needs […]
Does A Plot Outline Stifle Creativity Or Enhance It?
A plot outline can either stifle creativity or bring a novel’s plot into sharper focus. I don’t outline before I begin a novel, but when I am revising, an outline helps me make decisions about which scenes to keep and which to throw out. The scenes to keep are those that have tension, meaning scenes […]
Tension Skyrockets When You Tweak the Setting
Use setting to heighten tension in a story. Put a character in a place she or he doesn’t feel physically or psychologically comfortable, and you immediately inject tension into the scenes. Will she or won’t she figure out how to cope? In my story “Oregano,” Janice Dawkins comes in at the end of a long […]
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