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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 20, 2005 20:49:49 GMT -6
WRITER'S CHEAT SHEET
CHARACTER
- Do your characters have desires?
- Are your characters distinctive enough not to be types?
- Do your characters have contrasting traits that make them complex?
- Are your characters consistent despite their contrasting traits?
- Do your characters have the ability to change?
- Do you know your characters well enough?
- Are the right characters "round" and the right characters "flat"?
- Are you showing your characters more than telling about them?
- Are you utilizing all four methods of showing--action, speech, appearance, thought?
- Do your characters have the right names?
PLOT
- Do you have a major dramatic question?
- Do you have a protagonist with a strong goal and plenty of obstacles?
- Does your protagonist have both external and internal obstacles?
- Do you have a beginning, middle, and end?
- Is your beginning not clogged with too much exposition and not too long?
- Does your conflict escalate in the middle?
- Are the events of your middle linked by cause and effect?
- Do you have crisis, climax, and consequences at the end?
- Is your ending plausible, satisfying, and not too long?
POINT OF VIEW
- Does your story work best in first, second, or third person?
- Does your story work best with a single-vision or multiple-vision POV?
- Is there any reason your story might work best with the omniscient or objective POV?
- If you're using a second- or third-person narrator, how close emotionally is the narrator to the story and characters?
- Are you keeping your POV consistent?
DESCRIPTION
- Are your descriptions utilizing all five senses?
- Are your descriptions specific enough?
- Are you overusing adjectives and adverbs?
- Are you using figurative language and lyrical techniques where appropriate?
- Are your descriptions overdone, choking your story?
- Are you using telling details?
- Are you watching out for such description traps as clichés and mixed metaphors?
- Do your descriptions reflect the consciousness of your POV character or characters?
DIALOGUE
- Are you using dialogue and scenes for the more important points in your story?
- Does your dialogue sound real yet also get to the point quickly?
- Do your tags call too much attention to themselvs?
- Are you using stage directions to enhance your dialogue?
- Do your characters sound distinctive from one another and appropriate to who they are?
- Is there anywhere your dialogue can be improved by using subtext?
- Does your dialogue contain clunky exposition or off-putting dialect?
SETTING/PACING
- Have you grounded your story in a specific place, or places?
- Have you grounded your story in a specific time, or times?
- Do the place and time of your story affect the action?
- Are there oppourtunities to let the setting enhance the atmosphere or mood?
- Do your characters act in a way that reflects either their comfort or discomfort with their setting?
- Are you describing your settings so much that they slow down the action?
- Have you chosen the right places either to expand or to compress time?
VOICE
- Have you picked a voice that works in harmony with your POV choice, the personality of your narrator, and the narrator's emotional distance to the story?
- Do your word, sentence, and paragraph choices support your voice?
- Does your voice remain consistent throughout the story?
THEME
- Have you identified a theme for your story?
- Does your theme surround your story with a light enough touch?
- Do all the elements of your story work to support the theme?
REVISION
- Have you gotten enough distance from your story to begin the revision process?
- Have you considered reenvisioning your story?
- Have you looked through a magnifying glass at all the Big Things in your story?
- Have you looked through a microscope at all the Little Things in your story?
- Have you cut and tweaked as much as you possibley can?
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 28, 2005 19:15:47 GMT -6
Character Questionnaire 1
This questionnaire is found in Gotham Writers’ Workshop’s Writing Fiction.
You might start with questions that address the basics about a character:
- What is your character’s name? Does the character have a nickname?
- What is your character’s hair color? Eye color?
- What kind of distinguishing facial features does your character have?
- Does your character have a birthmark? Where is it? What about scars? How did he get them?
- Who are your character’s friends and family? Who does she surround herself with? Who are the people your character is closest to? Who does he wish he were closest to?
- Where was your character born? Where has she lived since then? Where does she call home?
- Where does your character go when he’s angry?
- What is her biggest fear? Who has she told this to? Who would she never tell this to? Why?
- Does she have a secret?
- What makes your character laugh out loud?
- When has your character been in love? Had a broken heart?
Then dig deeper by asking more unconventional questions:
- What is in your character’s refrigerator right now? On her bedroom floor? On her nightstand? In her garbage can?
- Look at your character’s feet. Describe what you see there. Does he wear dress shoes, gym shoes, or none at all? Is he in socks that are ratty and full of holes? Or is he wearing a pair of blue and gold slippers knitted by his grandmother?
- When your character thinks of her childhood kitchen, what smell does she associate with it? Sauerkraut? Oatmeal cookies? Paint? Why is that smell so resonant for her?
- Your character is doing intense spring cleaning. What is easy for her to throw out? What is difficult for her to part with? Why?
- It’s Saturday at noon. What is your character doing? Give details. If he’s eating breakfast, what exactly does he eat? If she’s stretching out in her backyard to sun, what kind of blanket or towel does she lie on?
- What is one strong memory that has stuck with your character from childhood? Why is it so powerful and lasting?
- Your character is getting ready for a night out. Where is she going? What does she wear? Who will she be with?
Character Questionnaire 2
This questionnaire was invented by the noted French author Marcel Proust. These questions are frequently used in interviews so you may want to pretend you’re interviewing your characters.
- What do you consider your greatest achievement?
- What is your idea of perfect happiness?
- What is your current state of mind?
- What is your favorite occupation?
- What is your most treasured possession?
- What or who is the greatest love of your life?
- What is your favorite journey?
- What is your most marked characteristic?
- When and where were you the most happiest?
- What is it that you most dislike?
- What is your greatest fear?
- What is your greatest extravagance?
- Which living person do you most despise?
- What is your greatest regret?
- Which talent would you most like to have?
- Where would you like to live?
- What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
- What is the quality you most like in a man?
- What is the quality you most like in a woman?
- What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
- What is the trait you most deplore in others?
- What do you most value in your friends?
- Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
- Whose are your heroes in real life?
- Which living person do you most admire?
- What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
- On what occasions do you lie?
- Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
- What are your favorite names?
- How would you like to die?
- If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
- What is your motto?
You can download these questionaires in Word .doc format on the page linked at the top of this post.
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 28, 2005 19:56:44 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 28, 2005 21:58:13 GMT -6
Who: What: Where: When: How: Why:
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 28, 2005 23:21:33 GMT -6
What to do when your group is off on a cruise and you have to critique yourself?
Excerpt 1: Excerpt 2:
One of the great truths about writing is that it’s much easier to see the flaws in someone else’s work than it is to pick them out in our own. That’s why critique groups are so helpful, particularly to the beginning writer.
But there are times when there isn’t a critique group close at hand. Or the members of the group all write short contemporaries while you write historicals set in the Stone Age. Or the feedback from the group is wildly varied (“Make that scene shorter”, “No, make it longer.” “I love your hero”, “KILL your hero.”) Or you’re inching closer to a sale, trying to read the editor’s mind, and your critique group is clueless.
Sometimes you just have to do it yourself.
How can a writer take a long honest look at her own writing? It’s difficult—because when we go back to read the words we’ve put on the page, we not only read the actual words, but we relive the emotions we felt as we were writing. We see the characters in our minds. We hear them speak. Unfortunately, our reader doesn’t have access to our emotions, our vision, and our inner ear—so she can only read the words on the page. That’s the advantage of a critique group. (At least until the group reaches the point where each member knows the other’s stories so well that it’s just like working on her own.)
So how do we judge whether we’ve truly conveyed the scene to the reader? How can we tell whether the story works?
The Self-Critiquer’s Tool Kit
Give yourself a break. Don’t try to write and edit in the same session. The two jobs are very different, and trying to switch back and forth can drive you crazy and make you think that there’s something wrong with a section that in fact is perfectly fine.
Give it a rest. Let your writing sit for a few days, if you can—without looking at it—before you try to decide what’s good and not-so-good about it. The more distance from the writing, the more able you’ll be to forget the wonderful things you were thinking while you wrote it and look at it from the reader’s perspective.
Use hard copy. A few rare people can edit efficiently on the computer screen, but for most of us the words have more reality when they’re printed on paper. It’s more final and more important—and difficulties (not only typos but story problems) stand out more clearly in a hard copy.
Read it fast. When in doubt about whether a story is working, lock up your pens and just read it straight through. You’re trying to absorb the whole story so that inconsistencies and plot holes can’t elude you. I often take the manuscript onto the treadmill—since I can’t make notes while I’m walking, I’m forced to just read, without fiddling and getting distracted by details.
Read it onto tape. The act of reading a section aloud will tell you whether your dialogue is natural (if it isn’t, you’ll find yourself changing the words, or else you’ll feel stiff). Listening to the tape will help you tell if the story pacing is good, if the characters are likeable, and if the point of view is straight. If you were listening to this tale as you drove across country, would it keep you on your toes or put you to sleep?
Get out your colored markers. The more the merrier. Highlight dialogue with one color, introspection with another, narrative with a third, attributions with a fourth, description with a fifth. You’ll quickly see whether you’ve overdone the story-telling, internalization, attribution, or description, and whether the proportions of the manuscript are right. If there’s a lot of dialogue in the first half but less in the last half, you may have shifted from showing your story to telling it.
Keep a time sheet. The longer I work on a section of the story, the more boring it seems. But sometimes it’s not the action that’s getting tired, it’s just me getting tired of the action because it’s been taking up so much of my time. By keeping track of the actual time I spend on each scene, I can keep myself from getting discouraged when the story doesn’t move along as fast as I’d like.
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 28, 2005 23:45:47 GMT -6
Excerpt:
Premise
The Premise is simply what your story is about. You should be able to state your Premise in a single line. This is also called a Log Line.
Another way to think of a Log Line is: how would they describe it in TV Guide? The shorter and simpler, the better.
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 29, 2005 21:06:08 GMT -6
Excerpt:
Simple Tricks
Here are five simple tricks that can help give your prose energy, pace, and a good, crisp feel.
So zap your thats, whack you ings, eliminate your wases, and banish your adjectives and adverbs for lively writing.
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 29, 2005 21:19:07 GMT -6
Excerpt
Flashbacks: In the work I see from writers new to novel writing, a common feature is flashbacks that stop the story dead.
My advice: avoid flashbacks whenever possible. I don't say never—I've used three flashbacks, one in each of my three novels.
To avoid flashbacks that are story-stoppers, do these two things:
Excerpt:
More on Flashbacks
I'm going to crib heavily from a book that I recommend heartily: "Stein on Writing," by Sol Stein. I was re-reading it the other day, and thought his thoughts on flashbacks might be helpful. Here goes:
Stein writes that, when asked how to handle flashbacks, Sinclair Lewis said, "Don't." But, as Stein says, sometimes you need them.
When to use a flashback: when the reader MUST have the information to understand what's going on in the "now." You have to be tough on yourself when deciding. Whatever it is, it must be essential. If you can take out and the reader will still get what's going on, you don't need it.
How to use a flashback:
Stein suggests posting the following where you can see it while you write: "Fiction should seem to be happening now." I agree, and that's what makes flashbacks so difficult.
The trouble with flashbacks is that they break the reading experience. Readers are (or should be, if you're doing your job right) intent on what happens next. Flashbacks not well done pull the reader out of the story.
Here's a terrific suggestion from Stein on how to get around the flashback barrier: move flashback material into the foreground so you don't need a flashback.
His example:
"You were a lousy kid, Tommy, a brat from the word go." "Hey, man, if you got punished as often as I got punished—" "Your old man was teaching you discipline." "By yanking my plate away before I'd had a mouthful?" "He got through to you, didn't he?" "He starved me. What he got through to me was I was hungry and he wouldn't let me eat. I hated him. I wished he'd die."
You learn about Tommy's childhood, what his father did to him, and how he hated his father.
You can do it with thoughts, too.
"Hey, kid, tell me what's the matter, " Al said.
The matter, Tommy thought, was you didn't have my father, I did. You didn't have him yanking the plate away as punishment. You didn't go to bed with pain in your gut.
Hope this helps. I'm definitely going to try the "flashback into foreground" technique next time I need to inject some backstory into my narrative.
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 30, 2005 18:52:55 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 30, 2005 19:55:49 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 1, 2005 23:16:47 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 3, 2005 21:18:21 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 4, 2005 18:09:58 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 4, 2005 23:19:53 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Oct 27, 2005 0:22:59 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Dec 29, 2005 20:03:04 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jan 23, 2006 18:50:15 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Mar 15, 2006 23:05:25 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Mar 15, 2006 23:24:31 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Apr 18, 2006 16:59:16 GMT -6
These questions are to help actors get into character, but they also help writers to learn more about the characters in their books.
Questions To Ask Each Of Your Characters:
Who Am I? | Character. | What Time Is It? | Century, Year, Season, Day, Minute. | Where Am I? | Country, City, Neighborhood, House, Room, Area Of Room. | What Surrounds Me? | Animate And Inanimate Objects. | What Are The Given Circumstances? | Past, Present, Future, And The Events. | What Is My Relationship? | Relation To Total Events, Other Characters, And To Things. | What Do I Want? | Character, Main And Immediate Objectives. | What's In My Way? | Obstacles. | What Do I Do To Get What I Want? | The Action: Physical, Verbal. |
Use All Five Senses (If Possible) When Answering Your Questions.
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Post by Joxcenia on May 4, 2006 22:46:40 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 12, 2006 16:50:06 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 12, 2006 16:57:13 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 12, 2006 17:35:21 GMT -6
There are four main types of stories: milieu, idea, character, and event.
A milieu story is one that focuses primarily on the setting. The culture, traditions, and locations of the setting are primary, while the characters are secondary and are there to introduce you to the setting. A great example of this is J.R.R. Tolkien's series The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's purpose is to entertain the reader by showing the reader Middle Earth. As such, light characterization is used. Many of the characters are little more than stereotypes; the elf, the dwarf, the wise wizard, the mischievous hobbits, the power-hungry evil enemy. Little is put towards making them multifaceted people. Instead, Tolkien focuses on the tales, songs, and traditions to be found among the various peoples of Middle Earth.
An idea story has a simple structure. At the beginning, a question is asked or a problem presented. The story ends at the resolution of this question. A good example of this is a detective story. In an idea story, the characters are usually not dynamic. The reader does not expect the main character to be transfigured by the events, and is satisfied so long as characters are sufficiently amusing.
A character story is about a person's attempt to find their role in life. Often, it begins at a point when the main character's life becomes unbearable or complex, and ends when the character finds satisfaction. Character stories, naturally, require the most complete characterization.
An event story is one in which the plot is centered around a set of events. Typically, event stories involve an imbalance or injustice, and end with the restoration of balance to the universe, the righting of wrongs, the removal of evil. The Count of Monte Cristo is a good example of an event story. It is the chronicle of a man's quest for justice, and ends when that justice is found.
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 12, 2006 18:09:36 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 12, 2006 20:16:44 GMT -6
When you come to a page such as this one, with comments about info you'd like to know, but the site doesn't give, try finding it through search engines:
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 12, 2006 20:19:33 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jun 24, 2006 20:03:52 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 11, 2006 21:42:43 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Jul 13, 2006 18:59:57 GMT -6
Delving into the short-fiction market can be a daunting task. You've finished writing that short story and thumbed through thick reference books listing hundreds of small-press magazines. You've visited their Web sites or read a sample issue, followed their guidelines and spent two days crafting a cover letter. You're determined, your sights set firmly on breaking into print-that first big hurdle.
The potential market is strong, but the trick is finding a formula that leads to your success-that one letter of acceptance that makes all the rejections worthwhile. Let's face it: Dealing with rejection is part of a writer's job. No one has everything they write accepted unless they're a member of the literati's upper crust-those few names that invoke envy and respect in the heart of every struggling writer.
What makes them so much more successful? And how did they get to that point in their careers where editors pick up the phone and request work sight unseen? Yes, they have talent, but talent alone is not enough. Writing is a business, and when you treat it as such, with the same professionalism and dedication you put into your day job, you will reap the rewards.
Editors are quick to point out that they can spot a novice writer from reading one or two paragraphs. Your presentation, as much as the quality of your work, is important to garnering a serious reading. Often, interns, readers or assistant editors handle the initial screening of submissions. It's not unusual for top small-press editors to receive up to 4,000 submissions a year, and only a handful of those will ever see print.
It's essential that you send in highly polished, error-free work that follows the publication's posted guidelines. Most magazines now list submission guidelines on their Web sites and provide a wealth of information that you, as a potential contributor, should review. Many sites archive past issues or offer a sampling of current issues, giving you the opportunity to read what has been published and to gain a sense of editors' tastes.
It is important to understand that editors' opinions are as varied as the tides. What one editor may dismiss, another will nominate for a literary prize. The writing business is all about perseverance. If you know the pitfalls to avoid, you'll be one step ahead of everyone else and attract the attention of editors.
Do
1. Create realistic dialogue. Listen to the conversations of strangers in restaurants, on planes or in line at the supermarket. How do they talk? Jot down their words on a notepad for future reference. What words do they routinely skip? Dialogue has to read like it sounds in real life.
2. Keep a clear perspective. While there are varying schools of thought on point of view in the short story, developing writers are smart to keep it in the first or third person. It's difficult enough to develop characterizations in such a short piece without the added burden of additional perspectives or the omniscient viewpoint. You want your readers to connect with your characters, not spend their time trying to figure out who thinks what.
3. Draw from your experiences. There is truth to the old adage, "Write what you know." Your life experiences, which by themselves may not be all that interesting to use as a plot for your next story, reveal the human condition. It's that emotional response you want to evoke, that feeling of empathy for a character that says to an editor: I like that person, or I hate that person, or that person feels real to me.
4. Be technically flawless. Do your homework. Use your spell-checker and a good, old-fashioned dictionary. Make sure your verb tenses agree and your point of view is consistent. Always check your grammar and punctuation. One paragraph of sloppy work is enough to make an editor immediately reject a story. Apply the same rules to your cover letter.
5. Use interesting characters. If you read through The Pushcart Prize (W.W. Norton) and The Best American Short Stories (Houghton Mifflin) anthologies, the single element that connects all of the stories is memorable characters. Their personalities stay with you long after you have finished reading the story. Spend the time to explore your characters thoroughly. Give them unique traits: How do they walk, talk, act and think differently than everyone else?
6. Develop your story line completely. This includes avoiding weak endings, sketchy characters who have no integral purpose in the story, or middle sections that seem to drag out for no other reason than to get from point A to point B. Every part of your story should hold an editor's attention.
7. Develop a strong opening. If editors are hooked from the first line, or at least from the first paragraph, they are more likely to read on. Sometimes it takes a while to set a scene. One trick is to start chronologically at the middle of your story, where there is more action or impending conflict, then work your way backward. Involve your reader first, then fill in the details.
8. Give your characters flaws. No one is perfect. Even the most compelling characters are brought to life by their shortcomings. Keep it real. Dig deep, go beyond your comfort zone and, above all, be honest. Readers can sense when you're not giving them the whole truth.
9. Create conflict on more than one level. In Rick Moody's Pushcart Prize-winning story, "The Mansion on the Hill," the protagonist not only battles real-life challenges but, by the end of the story, has changed his view on commitment. Having your characters grow emotionally can be more powerful and compelling than, for example, having them do battle with the most formidable opponent.
10. Explore your setting. Even a stark white empty room can enhance your story. Pull the readers into the world you've created by appealing to the senses. Your de-scriptions should be so vivid that the reader can smell the fresh paint on the walls or see the cracks in the ceilings. A sense of place can be useful on many levels.
"It's essential that you send in highly polished, error-free work that follows the publication's guidelines."
Don't
1. Don't use flowery dialogue. "Your beauty is like the first flush of a budding rose." Avoid using waxing-and-waning chatter to fill space: "Yes, I'm so glad I called her on the phone first, instead of just dropping by." Eliminate stilted, unnecessary introductions: "Hello, how are you? I am fine. I think I'll go now and head out to my car." Dialogue should be used for two reasons: to advance the plot and to reveal something about your character's personality.
2. Don't use a familiar plot (what editors call a "tired plot"). This means nixing those well-known and much-written-about scenarios: bad childhood, cancer victims, rape, incest-the list goes on and on. If you can work a tired plot into a totally unique and invigorating setting or cast of characters, that's the exception to the rule, but be forewarned that it takes an exceptionally gifted writer to pull it off.
3. Don't preach. You'd be surprised how many writers feel that the only way to address societal ills is to have the narrator or protagonist take the moral high ground. Give your readers credit for being intelligent. Any moral issue will be felt more acutely if you let your readers decide for themselves what is right and wrong. Let the characters speak through their actions. If you choose to reveal character flaws through dialogue, keep it real. Don't use characters as spokespeople for your personal cause.
4. Don't try to be too literary. Attempting to write in a sophisticated, imposing manner and trying to impress the reader with your extensive vocabulary create the opposite effect. It gives readers the impression that you are talking down to them.
5. Don't depend on dramatic events to carry your story. A common mistake editors see with beginning writers is plots centered around one devastating event. The event itself is not enough to carry a story. It is how your characters relate to an event that makes it an interesting story.
6. Don't overuse similes and metaphors. There is nothing worse than trying to read a story that is teeming with these devices. They are meant to be used but not so often or so obviously that they leave the reader comatose.
7. Don't resort to stereotypes. Easy to do, but much harder to avoid. You'll alienate your readers immediately if they catch you.
8. Avoid ordinary description. Again, it's easy to say that her hair was long and golden, or that her eyes were mesmerizing. Find a new way to describe your characters, your setting, even the commonplace items we take for granted. What's been said before is easily recognizable, especially to editors.
9. Don't use cliches. Not one, not ever. The exception? The boorish character who has such a narrow field of vision that he hangs his hat on them.
10. Don't exaggerate. Understatement is a much more powerful tool. You don't have to leave your characters prostrate on the floor, tears flowing as they tear out their hair, for the reader to understand that they are heartbroken.
From the October 2001 issue of THE WRITER.
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