by Russel | Aug 24, 2021 | Fiction technique
Hook your readers from the start A common complaint of editors and publishers is that a lot of the manuscripts they see have weak opening lines and take too long to get going. The truth is that potential readers aren’t going to hang around waiting for your story to... 
by Russel | Aug 24, 2021 | Fiction technique
Point of view, along with tense, is another big decision you’ll need to take in the early stages of writing a story. Point of view is about the grammatical ‘person’ who tells the story. There are three possibilities: First-person – ‘I’ or ‘we’. Second-person... 
by Russel | Aug 23, 2021 | Fiction technique
If there’s one piece of writing advice you’ll get about a zillion times in your writing career, it’s this: Show, don’t tell. Telling is when you give your readers direct information about a character or part of the story. For instance, you’ll say “Joe was really... 
by Russel | Aug 23, 2021 | Fiction technique
Fiction is all about creating the experience of real-life through made-up stories and characters. And because so much of what we experience in reality happens in conversations, it’s no wonder that dialogue is a defining feature of fiction. The following principles...