Tag: books

How to Make a Who-Dun-It

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[found on blog.karenwoodward.org; by Karen Woodward]

“1. Know who your murderer is and why they did it.

– What was their goal?
– What are the stakes?
– What motivates the killer?

By the end of the story make sure you’ve answered these questions in your manuscript.

2. Leave clues

The clues “do not have to be obvious or even fully explained. You’ll want to leave some “mystery in your mystery.”

3. After you finish the first draft add in clues where needed

Price’s tip: Red herrings are much easier to add in after the book is written as long as you don’t write yourself into a corner with your characters, such as explaining everything they do and why.

4. Don’t fully explain everything

Price writes: “Let your characters retain some mystery.”

People aren’t fully explained any more than they are wholly good or bad, your characters should reflect this.

5. Your protagonist doesn’t have to know everything, at least not right away

Like you and me, it’s okay if your sleuth doesn’t have all the answers and is unsure about what happened … as long as she gets there in the end.”

[found on http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/04/5-rules-for-writing-murder-mystery.html]

Name That Face

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[found on writersdigest.com; by Elizabeth Sims]

There are many different styles of naming your characters, one is the ironic choice.

“Ironic Names

Large chunks of Alexander McCall Smith’s bestselling 44 Scotland Street series concern the difficult life of Bertie Pollock, an Edinburgh schoolboy. Two of his schoolmates are lads named Larch and Tofu. Though minor characters, they’re there for a distinct purpose.

The names interact with a savory irony. Tofu and Larch’s names obviously have been bestowed by parents with finely tuned ideals. Political correctness abounds: One boy’s name is a legume paste, the other a tree. Yet the characters, we learn from their actions and words, are as shallow and phony-hearted as their names are sophisticated.

Smith gives us, by contrast, the simple, direct, honest Bertie. He is worth more than both Tofu and Larch put together. His is an ordinary, unpretentious name; his surname, Pollock, is a common fish. Bertie, then, is the humble everyman who must endure everybody else’s idiotic, self-serving vanities.

But for pure triumphal irony, can anything top the Veneering family, of Dickens’ classic Our Mutual Friend? Such a vaguely grand-seeming name for a vaguely grand family. Simultaneously, of course, their name clues us in that they are nothing but surface. And we enjoy watching them try—and fail—to live up to their banal aspirations.

Ironic names are easy to create: Just think of your character’s opposite qualities and brainstorm liberally. Let’s say you’ve got a clumsy guy who lives with his parents and aspires merely to avoid work and download porn. You could give him an ironic name like Thor or Victor or Christian or even Pilgrim. Or you could give him a first name that’s a family surname, like Powers or Strong.

Authors who want to use ironic character names should strictly limit themselves to one per story or novel.”

To see other options of name choice from Writer’s Digest, click here.

[found on http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/improve-my-writing/namedropping-finding-solid-names-for-your-unique-characters]

Plot Now, It’s Time

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[found on fictionwriting.about.com; by ]

“Give Some Thought to Plot.

Writing a novel can be a messy undertaking. The editing process will go easier if you devote time to plot in the beginning. For some writers, this means an outline; others work with index cards, putting a different scene on each one. Still others only have a conflict and a general idea of where they plan to end up before diving in. If you’ve been writing for a while, you already know how your brain works and what kind of structure it needs in order to complete big projects. If you’re just starting out, then this may be something you’ll learn about your writing process as you revise your first novel.”

To read more tips from Ginny Wiehardt, click here.

[found on http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/novelwriting/tp/noveladvice.htm]

Prompt Your Way

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[found on writingforward.com; by Melissa Donovan]

“Creative Writing Prompts

  1. You’re digging in your garden and find a fist-sized nugget of gold.
  2. Write about something ugly–war, fear, hate, or cruelty–but find the beauty (silver lining) in it.
  3. The asteroid was hurtling straight for Earth…
  4. A kid comes out of the bathroom with toilet paper dangling from his or her waistband.
  5. Write about your early memories of faith, religion, or spirituality; yours or someone else’s.
  6. There’s a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper…
  7. Write a poem about a first romantic (dare I say: sexual) experience or encounter.
  8. He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. To his horror, he saw…
  9. Silvery flakes drifted down, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon. The blackbird swooped down…
  10. The detective saw his opportunity. He grabbed the waitress’s arm and said…”
[found on http://www.writingforward.com/writing-prompts/creative-writing-prompts/25-creative-writing-prompts]

Strong Words Where Stand Ye?

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[found on writershelper.com]

“Writing Tip #5: Use strong verbs and nouns

The verbs are the action words. They put things in motion. Make yours as strong as possible.

The verb to be (am, is, are, was, were) puddles on the floor. Eliminate it wherever possible. I spent a year in Ukraine and experienced Russian, where the verb to be exists, but almost never appears. People simply leave it out and I found the effect powerful. In English we can’t leave verbs out of our sentences, but we can make those we use work hard for us.

Nouns name the people, places, and things in our world. English has multiple words for almost everything. A male parent can be father, dad, pop, daddy, the old man, pater, progenitor, sire, begetter, conceiver, governor, abba, papa, pa, pap, pappy, pops, daddums, patriarch, paterfamilias, stepfather, foster father, and other family nicknames. Choose the noun that does the best work for you.

Short words are usually best. They have more punch. They hit the gut hard.

The paragraph above has only one word with more than one syllable.”

For more exciting tips on writing from Writer’s Helper, click here.

[found on http://www.writershelper.com/writingtips.html]

Authors on Authoring

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“Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a charac­ter’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.”

—Elmore Leonard

“You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.”

—Margaret Atwood 

“Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don’t follow it.”

—Geoff Dyer

 

Which or That?

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[found on writetothepoint.com; by Gary Kinder]

“The difference between “that” and “which” might be the most confounding piece of grammar in the English language, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s what you need to know: Grammarians call the words following a “that” or a “which” a “relative clause.” That relative clause either “restricts” (I like the word “distinguishes” better, but grammar texts have long called the word “that” “restrictive”) what it modifies, or it “does not restrict” what it modifies. The writer tells us which it is by the word he chooses to introduce the clause.

“That” at the beginning restricts; it means that the writer wants the relative clause to distinguish one thing from a universe of like things. “Which” at the beginning means the writer addresses only one thing, and he simply wants to add information.”

[found on http://writetothepoint.com]