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How to Create Unique Character Dialogue When characters speak, it should be distinctive. Yet, when I write, if I’m not concentrating carefully, I tend to have all characters talk like–well, talk like me. Not good. Separate files. One revision strategy that seems to help is to cut and paste a character’s dialogue into a separate [...]
Connecting Emotional and Narrative Arcs The emotional arc is the inner conflict; the narrative arc is the outer conflict. How do you get these two arcs to mesh? Peter Dunne, in his book Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot has a simple suggestion. Dunne says to write the headline of a scene on [...]
Take Your Character’s Pulse The emotional arc of a story is just as important as the narrative arc; it’s just harder to see sometimes. One way to check this emotional or inner conflict arc is to consider scenes one at a time. First mark off one scene in your manuscript. Then, identify the emotional pulse [...]
Create a Character that Counts Stories are about characters who are involved with each other in conflict. Often in revising, it’s important to look carefully at each characters and ask hard questions: Does this character contribute to the conflict and resolution? What is this character’s role in the story? What is this character’s function in [...]
Update: See the Reader Tips posted. Click here. While I’m writing about tips for a stronger novel, I wonder what is YOUR favorite tip? Have you written about it on your blog or elsewhere? Send me a link (darcy at darcypattison dot com) and I’ll post them all together. Or add a comment to this post. [...]
Sensory Details Put Readers On-Location Where? Where does your story take place? If it’s in Barrow, Alaska, then I’d better see the Arctic Ocean, the ice jutting up in sharp columns as it is pushed against the shore. If it’s on a horse ranch, when you walk into the barn, I’d better smell that horse [...]
Match Emotional Structure to the Novel’s Settings Always try to matching the setting to the emotional layers of your story. For example, the setting of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a New England coastal village, appropriate for several reasons. It’s built on a solid cliff, like Turner’s life is built on the solid [...]
Character Names Help Characterize A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but do you really WANT to smell a swamp lily? Doesn’t the name itself just put you off? Or consider that in early drafts Margaret Mitchell is supposed to have named her famous heroine Pansy, instead of Scarlett O’Hara. Do you [...]
What is the Best Length for Novel Chapters? How long are your chapters? How long is long enough or too long? In his book, , action/adventure author, David Morrell (creator of the Rambo character, among others), says he tries to write short chapters, so that a reader can complete one chapter (or structural unit) at [...]
Write Subtitles for the Search Engine Do you want search engines to send people to your site? Then pay attention to your subtitles of your fiction. Subtitles aren’t always used for a novel, but they have become increasing important because of search engines. For non-fiction, authors try to pack the subtitle with every keyword for [...]
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