Not all types of comedy suit all readers, but everybody likes a good laugh—or even a slight smile. Many stories that are essentially serious are nonetheless enlivened and enriched by humor, and a few tested techniques can help put your humor across.
Don’t Start Your Story with a Dream! In real life, dreams have their own logic. They jump around, juxtapose images, fade and intensify, ignore transitions.
You need an editor to make your writing shine, and the first red pen that touches your draft should be your own. Learn how to revise, and especially, learn how to delete. Read Strunk & White’s Elements of Style or some other book that shows you how to strip verbiage, and then apply what you’ve learned to your manuscript.
Have you tried writing a synopsis? Do you hate it? You’re not alone. The synopsis is probably the single most hated document for authors to write, but we do it because publishers and agents usually demand it.
Figuring out how you want your readers to feel can improve your plotting. Everything you include in your plot should lead to emotions in some way.
Probably most of you remember all the big decisions you made, decisions that affected the course of your life.
Most people think of writing as a solitary occupation, and it is. Writers work alone, staring down the terrors of the blank page.
When someone asks you what your story is about, you tell them the actions and conflict of your protagonist. You don’t discuss your subplots because they’re minor.
When you develop your characters, you want them to be consistent so that readers can understand and perhaps identify with them. Your characters’ actions don’t have to be smart, but they must be done for a reason.
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist, editor, and novelist, Kay Keppler, as she shares with us “Selling Your Book to Readers.” Enjoy!
A famous author once said that every book should contain a love story. Now, that author might not have thought that the love story needed a sex scene, but many novelists writing in every genre do include sex scenes in their books. And there’s a problem with that.
We’ve all heard the first commandment for writers: never open your book with backstory. And the second commandment? No infodumps. And the third? Sprinkle that backstory throughout your book.
Do protagonists have to be likeable? Of course, because how else can a reader bond with your hero? Of course not, because some of the most fascinating protagonists in literature are unlikeable, or indeed, hateful.
The first line of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is “Call me Ishmael.” Thus begins an incredible saga told through the eyes of one of literature’s greatest narrators.
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