I have another Tips & Tricks post that goes over compression—also known as the “Five Word Dialogue” rule. And the idea behind it is to take an emotional or heated conversation between characters and reduce their dialogue to five words or less, thus drawing focus to the real issues lying beneath the surface. By limiting…
There are plenty of difficult aspects of writing fiction, but one of the hardest things to do is set a scene that really comes to life for the reader. A lot of writers struggle with White Room Syndrome—a common issue in which the writing has become so involved with the characters and dialogue that the…
This is a little trick I came up with *all by myself!* 😁 This is a technique to use if you’re a pantser like me, and you might have a lot of key scenes already written down, but the flow of the story seems a little clunky overall. Create or buy a set of blank…
It happens to all writers at some point: we’re on a roll, the words are flowing from our mind like some kind of nice, flowy thing; we start to fall in love with our story all over again. And then we hit it: a lull. We know we want to get from beginning to end,…
Here is a quick tip that has proven to be extremely helpful for me with my latest writing. On the horrible occasion when you suddenly find yourself stuck on a scene, before you resort to other “writer’s block tactics,” consider this: there is a problem a few sentences back. I can’t remember if I heard…