Improve Your Weak Opening

More on Starting a Novel
Reading a wide variety of mss, I find this to be one of the weakest areas: openings. Striking just the right note is difficult. What do you include just as the curtain opens on your novel?
Typical advice:

Start with something exciting.
Grab the reader by the throat and never let them go
Jump right [...]

Rich Prewriting Enhances Novel

Rich Prewriting Enhances Novel
I’m currently researching material for my novel.
Setting. I’ve sort of settled on a setting; often for me, the setting comes first. I’m looking at sequences of events, variations on those sequences, variations in how the setting might look at different times, some of the odd-ball jobs in this setting, etc. I’m [...]

Give Me Your File Drawers and I’ll Give you Cash

A Gold Mine Awaits in Your File Drawers
Take a good look at the files in your file drawers! You could be rich by mining those drawers.
There are snatches of dialogue, character sketches, interesting anecdotes, tons of research and facts on obscure things. For example, from my research for novels, I can tell you about [...]

Opening Lines

12 Ways to Start a Novel
First lines. We all obsess over our novel’s first lines, and rightly so, because from it the rest of the story must flow naturally and without a pause. Here are 10 strategies to use on first lines for your novel. I’ve illustrated them with the “100 Best Lines from Novels,” [...]

Enrich a Story Plot

Last week I was wondering if I could combine two plots into one. One idea was for an Event and one for Characters. While I still think they could have meshed, the character story took off on it’s own into a short story.
Now the question is what to do with the Event idea, how to [...]

10 Checkpoints for Scenes

Does your Scene Pass this Checklist?

Where/When. (Setting) Did you orient the reader at the beginning of the scene? Does the reader know where this takes place: room in house, city, state, country, etc? Does the reader know when this takes place: time of day, season of year, place within chronology of story? If the [...]

Picture Books 5

7 Children’s Picture Book Manuscripts in 7 Days

I’m taking the 7 in 7 picture book challenge.

Report on 7 in 7 for the first week of May, 2009
Overall: This was an interesting exercise that I’d like to repeat in a slower month, not May. Why is the Nanowrimo in November and this had to be in [...]

Re-Envision

10 Ways to Start the Process of Re-Envisioning
How do you start revisions? You’ve got a great draft, and it’s pretty settled in your mind that this is how the story happens. BUT, readers aren’t thrilled with it. Editors and agents pass it by with a nice personal letter. Great, you think. There’s something here, but [...]

4 Ways Weather Affects Your Story

At my house, we’re iced in today, with schools closed for the weather.
How Does the Weather Affect Your Story?
Have you ever included a snow or ice day in your story? Does your character sweat through a scorching day while mowing the lawn?
If not, you’re missing a great chance to include sensory details and bring your [...]

Stronger Setting Details

This entry is part 5 of 13 in the series How to Write a Novel
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 [...]