writing primer Archives -

WRITING BASICS: ELEMENTS OF CRAFT IN A NUTSHELL

November 9th, 2024Sarah Lovett0 Comments

It’s always handy to have writing basics at your fingertips in a nutshell: Viewpoint – The perspective you choose and use to tell your story. In the simplest terms the choices are 1st person (I), 2nd person (you, rarely used), limited 3rd person (he, she, as in a central character or protagonist), and 3rd person omniscient (sometimes defined as a godlike viewpoint, shifting between and encompassing the viewpoints of multiple characters). Viewpoint a.k.a. POV. Summary – The efficient and active accounting of story events that otherwise are not rendered fully in a scene. Story-telling with the emphasis on the telling versus the …

Dialogue and Scenes – Making Them Great – Quick Writing Tips

April 14th, 2017Sarah Lovett2 Comments

Great dialogue makes for great scenes In last week’s post, I focused on tips for writing great scenes–scenes and summary are the building blocks of fiction and memoir. A friend who blogs and writes essays read the post and reminded me that scenes and partial scenes also lend energy and veracity to nonfiction. So true! C’mon, make a scene! First of all, a vital reminder: a scene is a piece of story action, played out moment-by-moment on page, stage, or screen. Conflict drives every scene. No conflict, no scene. A scene moves, dynamically beginning in one place and ending in …

Good Writing, a Tip from E.L. Doctorow

January 8th, 2016Sarah Lovett0 Comments

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader–not the fact that it is raining, but the feelings of being rained upon. ~E.L. Doctorow

#NaNoWriMo2015–Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #24)

November 25th, 2015Sarah Lovett0 Comments

Five days to go for 2015’s National Novel Writing Month! I was conversing with a writer today about what it means to finish a first draft. We went over the nuts and bolts of what happens after you write the last line of the first draft of your story. I told him I always put aside my manuscript for several weeks or more. When I am ready to pick up my manuscript and read from cover to cover over the course of a day or two or three, I know that my goal is to read like a reader. I …

#NaNoWriMo2015–Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #13)

November 14th, 2015Sarah Lovett0 Comments

In my work as a coach and consultant, I read manuscripts on a regular basis. Often, I can identify what’s working–or not–within the first 20 pages. Whether you are aiming to sell to a traditional publishing house, or you are going the independent publishing route, your story must hook your reader (agent, editor, or bookstore browser) on page one. Powerful prose is great–as long as you’re using it to tell a story with an engine. I call that “engine” the story equation, and it represents the cohesion and chemistry of the most important story elements: the story catalyst, the event that hooks the reader; the dilemma (sometimes …

November 19th, 2014Sarah Lovett0 Comments

The View from Here: One Writer’s Thoughts on Viewpoint Any in-depth discussion of viewpoint or point of view (POV) is a complex undertaking because viewpoint is perhaps the most intricate element of fiction. Because in this blog, I aim for simplicity, I will cover a few basics, and, with the examples interspersed, encourage you to register and reflect upon your impressions. For the moment lets consider point of view as the person and perspective used to narrate the story. More simply yet profoundly put by author and teacher Janet Burroway, viewpoint is the vantage point from which a story is …

WRITING RULES

June 12th, 2011Sarah Lovett0 Comments

One of my favorite writing rules comes from Dwight V. Swain from his wise and practical book TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER (University of Oklahoma Press): ” 1) Separate creative impulse from critical judgement. The first a most essential step is to recognize the human tendency to mix the two. Then, walk wise around it. To that end, adopt a working rule of “Create now….correct later.” Promise yourself the privilege of being as critical as you like, as soon as the first draft of a scene or story is completed. Until the draft is done, however, stick with impulse. Let …

Life of Fiction

February 7th, 2011Sarah Lovett0 Comments

From Kenneth Atchity’s A WRITER’S TIME: Fiction isn’t identical with reality. Instead, dramatic fiction gives the impression of reality. Aristotle described it as an “imitation” of action. In many ways we prefer the imitation to reality. Fiction has a definable shape, a satisfying closure. When you read a good book or see a good play, you walk away with a feeling of having experienced something definite, something conclusive. Unfortunately, life itself doesn’t often provide such a well-rounded feeling. We go to the theater or the bookstore to find fictions that are philosophically, morally, or dramatically more meaningful than those we …

Dreaming Awake

June 17th, 2010Sarah Lovett0 Comments

“Creative writers make believe. They train themselves sharply to observe the world around them, to notice the unnoticed. They reach back into their past lives for rich characters, vivid settings, and meaningful events. But at some point, the search for raw material veers toward another source–it turns inward to what isn’t, wasn’t, and could never be, yet somehow seems right, real, and true.” From: THE CREATIVE PROCESS by Carol Burke and Molly Best Tinsley

Advice on Writing a Bestseller–Beware Info-Dump

October 28th, 2009Sarah Lovett0 Comments

When I work with writers, often the hardest news I have to deliver about their manuscript is “Cut, cut, cut, cut the info-dump.” That’s the term some people in the biz use to describe the excessive use of backstory/exposition. You know it when you see it–paragraphs or pages of information delivered passively to the reader. Information served up on a paper plate. Information that dulls the reader out of the dynamic narrative now. When I say it’s difficult to tell writers they have to cut backstory that’s because they’ve usually spent hours, days, weeks getting those sections just right. They …