How to Turn Good Dialogue into Great Dialogue
We fiction writers want to write terrific dialogue. After all, dialogue is the “make or break” element in a story….
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Pacing Tips for Fiction
Strong pacing is critical in a fictional story, but it’s one of the hardest elements to understand and master. That’s…
Balancing “Showing” with “Telling” in Fiction
It’s the golden rule of fiction: show, don’t tell. But it’s easier said than done. Show too much, and you’ll…
Backstory Tips and Tricks
You’ve spent hours, maybe months, developing a rich background for each of your characters and the world they inhabit. As…
5 Ways to Strengthen Weak Writing
Every writer has to work on strengthening the construction of their sentences and paragraphs. No one’s writing is perfect, but…
Starting Your Scenes with a Bang!
Openings are a science unto themselves, be they openings for an entire book, for a chapter, or for a scene….
7 Tips to Avoid Overwriting
Repetition. Redundancy. Useless words. All fiction writers fall into the trap of overwriting. We’re lured by the desire to be…
Essential Fiction-Writing Tools of the Trade
This is a reprint of a post printed seven years ago. If you’re a fiction writer, you need to get…
The Perils of Purple Prose
This post is an excerpt from the book 5 Editors Tackle the 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing. Robin Patchen…
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