Now Novel
Developing the story content of your writing – your characters, plots, dialogue and other areas – is important. Yet mastering different writing styles is equally important if you want to convey your story to readers with creative precision. Read 10 tips for developing and mastering your language use:
Tone and mood are two powerful elements of writing that affect how readers feel. Tone tells us a lot about characters – a protagonist whose tone is mostly sarcastic, for example, might seem jaded. Mood is closely tied to place. The atmosphere of a story setting, how characters feel about it, affects the mood. Read useful examples of tone and mood from fiction and tips for improving your own:
Ever wanted to groan out loud at how obvious and unoriginal a phrase, plot point or character in a book was? Common clichés in fiction weaken the dramatic effect and imaginative power of a story. Read on for a definition of cliché, examples of plot, character and descriptive clichés, and how to avoid clichés in your own writing:
Learning how to make a good story great requires mastering the essentials of writing craft: Plot (cause and effect), characterization, narration, description and dialogue. If you’ve written a good story but feel it could be more interesting, these 9 steps will help you transform it into a better first draft:
What is pacing in writing? In fiction, pacing refers to how quickly (or slowly) the action of the story unfolds. Why is pacing in a story important? Because it helps to keep the reader interested and maintains a desired atmosphere and tone. A suspense thriller shouldn’t move at a crawl, just as an adventure novel shouldn’t end rapidly, almost as soon as it began. Here are 5 tips for getting pacing in your novel right:
Have you ever read a great horror or thriller novel and felt a pervasive sense of the eerie or ominous? How did the writer create that mood? Mood is an aspect of novel writing that is often overlooked. We talk more about specific elements such as character and plot. The mood of your novel emerges out of a combination of these elements: Plot and theme, language, characters and setting. Yet focusing on mood itself as a subject is useful for making sure your story affects readers the way you want it to. Here are tips for writing fiction that establishes mood effectively:
“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most common pieces of advice given about writing, but should you follow this advice? In fact, sometimes you should tell (and not show). Here are some of the reasons why:
