Now Novel
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:
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:
Many prominent novelists have also been poets: the Canadian author Margaret Atwood has been a prolific writer of not only novels but poetry and essay collections too. Poetry tends to have a smaller readership, but the best poems provide insights into how to be creative with image, style and line:
