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Happy Friday, Writers! We made it! The weekend is here! I hope you had a very productive writing week. If you’ve been following along with us, you know that our Writing Word of the Week is Dialogue. On Wednesday we touched on the subject briefly and provided you with three dialogue prompts, today we are going to go further in depth into the importance of good dialogue in fiction.[image error]

Why is it important to have dialogue in your story?

Any work of fiction should reflect everyday life (or at least a fictitious version of it), and in everyday life people communicate with each other, typically engaging in conversation. Consequently, characters in fiction should communicate by speaking to each other.

But you can’t just throw any old conversation into your story. The dialogue must serve a purpose.
Dialogue Should Reveal Information About Characters and Their Relationships

The way a character speaks reveals a lot of information about them. Each character should have their own unique and distinctive voice, just as each person has their own unique way of communicating.

Good dialogue gives subtle hints to readers about the characters� personalities, backgrounds and interests that will continue to develop throughout the story. Through dialogue the author can highlight characters� most important characteristics. Readers can also learn about what kind of people the characters are, what their motives are, and what their role is within the story.

Characters should also evolve through dialogue. In fact, at least one character should undergo a change of mood within each dialogue sequence. Characters evolve and are defined through what they say and the tone in which they speak far more quickly and effectively than can be described by the narrator.

Dialogue is also one of the methods used to depict the way characters relate to each other. What they say, how they say it, and the tone in which they communicate provides us with a lot of information about their relationship with the character they are interacting with. Do they like each other, or perhaps love each other? Or are the arch-enemies? Are the close family members or newly acquainted? Dialogue can provide the reader with important clues. The way the characters speak to each other reveals most of what the reader needs to know about how they relate to each other with no need for the narrator to spell it out in a long exposition.

Dialogue Should Advance the Plot

Dialogue is also critical to plot advancement. Conversations between characters often provide significant moments of conflict or turning points. Dialogue allows the story to move forward in a more straight-forward way than a narrator’s long-winded explanation would. Use dialogue to increase suspense, to strengthen or weaken the protagonists� resolve, or move them closer to their goal, or further away from it. If the dialogue achieves these goals, then it has moved the plot forward.

Dialogue Should Be Used as a Foreshadowing Method

Dialogue can also be used as a tool of foreshadowing. Your characters can have conversations that may be overlooked in the first reading but reveal that they held a greater significance later on around the climax of the plot-line. Foreshadowing in dialogue gives readers subtle hints about characters and events while paving the way for future action. One example of dialogue foreshadowing from my own books is in The Faithful Kiss, when Katelynn Wilder tells her best friend, “Bridget, you and your strange family are gonna be the death of me.�

Dialogue Should Be Used to Set the Scene and Provide Information

As characters talk to each other, the reader can learn about the setting of the story. The time period, the location of the action, and the driving conflicts can all be revealed through the dialogue between characters. While you don’t want lengthy descriptive dialogue, short lines with significant details can inform readers about the story’s world. Reading this dialogue can provide readers with information that is more meaningful coming from the characters themselves than a section of narrator prose.

For instance, if your story is set in the Southern regions of the United States the dialect and phrases that the characters use would be very different than if the story is set in England or Asian countries.

With dialogue the author can “show� what is happening instead of “telling� it. Dialogue can portray a scene vividly while breathing life into the characters. Dialogue enables readers have first-hand experiences and be direct witnesses of what is happening in the story.

Dialogue Should Change the Pace

Dialogue increases the story’s pace and makes it more dynamic. It will always be harder to read a whole paragraph where the narrator explains step by step the same things that dialogue can convey in a few lines. For example, when one of the characters suddenly shouts, “Duck!â€� the reader immediatelyÌýknows there is danger incoming without the need of the narrator explaining in great detail that something is probably flying towards the character’s head.

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Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of good dialogue in your fiction writing.

If you would like to learn more about writing dialogue, I recommend the following books:

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Have a great weekend, Writers! See you Monday for Motivation Monday.

Write On!

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Happy Wednesday, Writers! We’ve made it half way through the week. Only a couple more days to go before the weekend! Welcome back to another installment of Write About It Wednesday! This week our Writing Word of the Week is: Dialogue. Therefore, today we are providing you with three short dialogue prompts.

[image error]Dialogue can make or break your story. Dialogue done right can advance your plot, reveal information about your characters, and create chemistry while demonstrating the relationships between characters. Done wrong, and it leaves your story flat, unbelievable, and in some really bad instances, can make your story unreadable.

With so much riding on good dialogue it is important to practice writing fresh, snappy, and believable dialogue. Your dialogue needs to be true to the characters that you have developed.

Your prompts:

Write a story about a character who would say, “I’ve done a bad, bad thing.�
Write a story about a character who would say, “Give me coffee, or get lost.�
Write a story about a character who would say, “I didn’t mean it; if I could take it back, I would.�

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Okay, writers! You’ve got your prompts. Get to writing! We’ll see you on Friday for Free Topic Friday where we will be discussing dialogue in more depth.

We’d love for you to share some of your stories that you have written with the prompts we’ve provided. Leave them in the comments! Or share them to our .

Write On, Writers!

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Happy Monday, Writers! I hope you had a great weekend! Did you check out the football game that happened during the middle of the Justin Timberlake concert?

Now that the big game and half-time show are over, it is time to get back to the real world. We’re starting the week off like we always do with Motivation Monday.

Today I want to talk about Fear and Fear Setting.

Most of us have plans and goals that far exceed our realities, and it can be a painful feeling to know that you’re selling yourself short. Despite this, many of us are too afraid or too unsure to take the necessary next steps to move on with our lives and achieve those goals. It never feels like the ‘right time� (newsflash: it is never the right time), it never seems like the ‘responsible� thing to do, and we always feel like we’re inviting failure.

In short, we are held back by fear. So, the question is: how can you overcome those fears?

The answer might just be something called ‘fear setting�.

The Concept of Fear Setting

The general idea behind fear setting is that you’re going to more clearly define what your fears are, and thus start coming up with more effective ways to overcome those fears.[image error]

For many of us, our fears are very much abstract and general, rather than being concrete and specific. But when you take the time to identify the true nature of those fears, they can often end up losing their power over you.

For example, let’s say that you want to write and publish a book. You might have the fears that:

Your book will be bad and people will think less of you
Your partner will think that you’re foolish for writing a book and they will judge you
Your book won’t get accepted by a publishing house
Your book won’t sell

These all seem like legitimate fears. But now you’re going to actually write those fears down, and thereby make yourself fully aware of what they are. Once you’ve done this, you can then start to go through them one by one and address how realistic each fear is, what you would do if it actually came true and how you could prevent it from happening.

For example:

Your book will be bad and people will think less of you

Most people would in fact be much more likely to think more of you for having tried something exciting
Who cares what other people think? Write the damn book if you want to write a book.


Your partner will think that you’re foolish for writing a book and they will judge you

Ask them
They will probably think what you’re doing is inspiring and they should support you and your dreams


Your book won’t get accepted by a publishing house

There are thousands of publishing houses. If one rejects your book keep trying.
You can always self-publish
Even famous authors get turned down by publishers.


Your book won’t sell

Your book sure won’t sell if you never write it.

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Fear setting shows us that the only thing to fear, is fear itself! [image error]

Don’t let fear hold you back from writing and publishing your book (or whatever writing project you dream of). Ditch your fear and get motivated. It’s a new week and a new opportunity to write all the words. Get out there and do it!

What are your writing fears? What has been holding you back from following your writing dreams? Tell us in the comments.

Don’t forget to snag some sweet writing merchandise from the .

And check on these books about overcoming your fear.

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Here’s a Ted Talk on the Topic of Fear Setting.

We will see you Wednesday for Write About It Wednesday.

Write On, Writers!

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Happy Friday, Writers! Welcome to another Free Topic Friday where we cover everything writing related. If you follow us on or you know that this week our Writing Word of the Week is Synopsis, which means today our topic today is: Synopsis. (Ta-Da! I know, you’re surprised, right?)[image error]

The dictionary definition of ‘synopsis� (derived from the Ancient Greek meaning) is ‘a brief description of the contents of something�. For the purpose of this blog, a synopsis is a ‘summary of the plot of your novel� (here we will solely be speaking about fiction novels). A synopsis is usually 1-3 pages long and it essentially tells your story from beginning to end, while ridding the story of any intrigue, humor, purple prose, or emotional tone. A synopsis provides the readers with a generalized overview of the plot events and the specific appeal of the story. The challenge of writing the synopsis of your novel is cutting the story down to its essence, giving just enough information to draw the agent or editor into the story, but without giving away so much that the manuscript loses all sense of mystery. The synopsis should tell the plot of the story while still leaving the reader wanting to know more, wanting to continue on to the full manuscript. They should want to dive further into the world you have created and long to get to know your characters more intimately.

Why do you need to write a book synopsis? AÌýsynopsis is often required because an agent or publisher wants to see, from beginning to end, what happens in your story. Thus, the synopsis must convey aÌýbook’s entire narrative arc. It shows what happens and who changes, and it must reveal the ending. The purpose of a synopsis is to inform a literary agent or publisher of the type of book you are have written in a concise, appealing fashion, conveying that you are in command of your subject matter. Synopses help the publisher/literary agent decide whether they think it is worth their time to look further into your book, your writing, and your future as an author.

Agents, publishers, and editors ask to see your synopsis because the synopsis lays bare your story, plot, and characters. Seeing your story laid out in this bare format ensures character actions and motivations are realistic and make sense.ÌýA synopsis will reveal any big problems in your story.ÌýA synopsis will reveal plot flaws, serious gaps in character motivation, or a lack of structure.ÌýA synopsis also can reveal how fresh your story is; if there’s nothing surprising or unique, your manuscript may not get read.

So, if you are wanting to go the traditional publishing route, it is imperative that you write an intriguing synopsis.

Unfortunately, there is no single “rightâ€� way to write a synopsis. You’ll find conflicting advice about the appropriate length, which makes it rather confusing territory for new writers especially. Lucky for us, agents usually aren’t expecting a work of art.ÌýYou can impress them with lean, clean, powerful language. And there are a few basics that will work no matter which company you are submitting to.

Here are some tips, some Dos and Don’ts of writing a synopsis:
What should your synopsis accomplish?
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Introduces the characters we will care about. (Namely the protagonist.)
Provides a clear idea of the core conflict for the protagonist and demonstrates how the protagonist succeeds or fails in dealing with that conflict. (This is the narrative arc.)
Illustrates how that conflict is resolved and how the protagonist’s situation, both internally and externally, has changed by the end of the novel.

Tips on How to Write a Synopsis

Use Active Voice. Let your writing skills shine in your synopsis by using active voice and third person. Make each action described in the summary of your story’s events drive the plot forward.
A Unique Point of View. Agents look for fresh ideas and unique story elements. Is your plot cliché or predictable? Make sure to include elements that set your story apart from other’s they have seen one hundred times before.
Story Advancement. A synopsis should include the characters� feelings and emotions as they grow and change through the conflict. Use these elements to advance your plot and story � illustrating the narrative arc.
Write Clearly and Use Your Words Judiciously. Keep your writing clear and concise, and make sure that the words you do use carry emotive and imaginative weight. Each word should create a vivid emotional or descriptive pull. The reader should be curious to know more and desire expanding their knowledge of how your story unfolds.
Keep to the Essentials. Leave out everything that doesn’tÌýgive the reader an idea of character development, key plot twists and turns, and any conflicts and resolutions. A good rule of thumb in determining what needs to be included in the synopsis is: ÌýIfÌýthe ending wouldn’t make sense without the character or plot point being mentioned, then it belongs in the synopsis. If the character or plot point comes up repeatedly throughout the story, and increases the tension or complication each time, then it definitely belongs. This will communicate that your book has a strong underlying creative purpose.
Don’t Give Only a Dry Account of the Plot. As we stated above, your synopsis should include the character’s feelings and emotions. That means it should not read like a manual to your novel’s plot. You must include both story advancement and color.
Read Your Book Synopsis Aloud. It’s commonÌýadvice for writing better narrative prose. It’s also equally good adviceÌýfor writing a compelling book synopsis. Hearing your synopsis aloud will help with the editing process.
Use the Synopsis Format that Your Intended Reader Prefers. Because the aim of a novel’s synopsis is a concise explanation of the key plot points and feelings evoked by a story, formatting a book synopsis in a simple way is important. Some publishers will give their own advice as to how they like manuscript synopses to be submitted. See if you can find this information on publishers� websites before you submit.
Make the opening good. Just as a first chapter should make the reader want to know more, a good synopsis opening makes the reader want to know more about the characters, events, and potential conflict of your novel. The first paragraph of the synopsis should give the same basic information you convey through the book’s first chapter. The Who, What, When, Where, and Why.

What to Avoid When Writing a Synopsis

Mentioning too many characters or events.
Including too much detail about plot twists and turns.
Unnecessary detail, description, or explanation.
Editorializing your novel or book.
Writing back cover copy instead of a synopsis.

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I hope you have found this information helpful! Writing a synopsis is one of the most dreaded tasks for many writers who are looking to get published. Armed with this information you should be well informed and equipped for the task of dazzling future publishers and agents who get their hands on your submissions.

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If you want to research synopsis writing further, I recommend these books:

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Have more advice, tips, or tricks you would add to this list? Tell us in the comments.

Have a great weekend, writers! Write All the Words. We will see you Monday for Motivation Monday!

Write On!

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Happy Hump Day, Writers! Welcome to Write About It Wednesday! This Sunday is the biggest sporting event in America. The Super Bowl. On Sunday, February the 4th the Philadelphia Eagles will battle against the New England Patriots in an epic game of football. Meanwhile, families and friends around the country will gather together in front of their televisions to watch the game. They will cookout hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue chicken, and smoke briskets. They’ll order an enormous amount of pizza and giant sandwiches. Consume massive amounts of chips and dips and all the tasty snacks. (Can you tell my favorite part of Super Bowl Sunday is the food? Well, the food and the commercials. HaHa!) Emotions will rise and fall based upon how the favored team is playing. Fights will be had, couples will fall in love, money will be won and lost. It’s like the whole country stops what they normally do and comes together over this one football game.

It can make for some great storytelling! Which is why this week, our Write About It [image error]Wednesday Topic is: Super Bowl Sunday!

Write about a couple who is rooting for opposing teams during the Super Bowl.
Write about the Super Bowl from the POV of a football player on one of the teams.
Write about your favorite Super Bowl Sunday experience.

Have you found Write About It Wednesdays helpful to your writing process? We want to know! How will you be spending Super Bowl Sunday? Tell us in the comments. And don’t forget to swing by the to find some awesome gear!

We’ll see you Friday for Free Topic Friday. This week we will be covering Synopses.

Write On, Writers!

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Happy Motivation Monday, Writers! It’s a new week and you have a new opportunity to write the project you’ve always dreamt of writing. So, let’s get you motivated and writing![image error]

This week for Motivation Monday I want you to ask yourself: Why are you writing?

Out of everything else in the world you could be doing, why is it you are sitting and working on this book, story, screenplay, blog, article, or poem?

What are you hoping to accomplish? What message are you trying to get across? What is your end goal?

Is writing something you have always wanted to do or is it a new passion? Are you just good at writing so you figured you could make a career out of it?

What drives you to spend hours in front of your computer typing away, sacrificing sleep and free time?

Do you hope to become a New York Times Best Seller? Are you hoping to win a Pulitzer? Do you have a story that you want to entertain the world with? Or is writing something that you are just driven to do because a writer is just who you are and always have been?

When you get frustrated and start to think about giving up writing for good. Think about why you started in the first place.

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What was the first story you remember writing? Did you keep a journal or diary when you were young? When did you fall in love with the written word? Was it your favorite childhood bedtime story? A play by Shakespeare? A poem by Walt Whitman?

When you go back to the beginning you can find the motivation that you had when you first started out. You find a renewed sense of purpose. You are reminded of the reason that you love this frustrating, often unrewarding work.

This week if you feel stuck or defeated, go back to the beginning and remind yourself of why you decided to start writing in the first place.

Head to the comments and tell us why you write! And don’t forget to swing by the “It’s a Writer’s Life For Me Shop� to snag some sweet merchandise![image error]

We’ll see you Wednesday for Write About It Wednesday!

Write On, Writers!

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Happy Friday, Writers! Welcome to Free Topic Friday where we cover everything writing related.

°Õ´Ç»å²¹²â’s Free Topic Friday is all about Developing Your Writing Voice.

Finding your writing voice can be a challenge, whether you’re writing a novel, flash fiction, article, or a blog post. You might even ask, “What is a writing voice?�

Let’s start by recognizing a few things writing voice isn’t. Voice is not style. It’s not technique. It’s not branding. It’s not a decision to write in first or third person. It’s not just the dialogue of your characters.

So, what is it? Your writer’s voice is the expression of you on the page. A writer’s voice is something uniquely their own. It’s the way you write; your voice, in writing, is as natural as everyone’s speaking voice. Your voice should be authentic and all your own, even if you borrow a sense of style from your favorite author. It makes your work pop, plus readers recognize the familiarity when they read multiple books authored by the same writer.

One of the most common problems with fiction by new authors is the lack of a unique voice on the page.

Luckily, writers can develop their voice.

Despite what you might have heard or read, a writer’s voice is learned and developed rather than “found� or “discovered.� And just as you can learn a new language or skill, you can craft your writing voice. How can you develop your voice? Below are tips and exercises to help you develop your writing voice.

Tips for Developing Your Voice

Grow a writing portfolio. Writing is a muscle that requires daily exercise. Write often covering a variety of topics and genres. Save all your writing, creating a portfolio.
Read widely. And don’t read only the kind of stuff you write; read it all! If you’re a self-help writer, read fantasy fiction or romance, for example. The poet about how to find your voice. He believes you must “Read widely, read all the poetry you can get your hands on. And in your reading, you’re searching for something. Not so much your voice. You’re searching for poets that make you jealous.� Then he suggests you key into these poets, mimicking the ones you admire until their influences weave and combine into something new: your voice. Study these texts by other writers looking at details, word choice, and sentence structures.
Let go of fear. Write your rough draft like nobody will ever see it. Just relax and let go of perfection. Then go back to edit.
Let your personal style shine. The more you write, the more your style emerges and becomes consistent. Do you swear a lot? Swear in your writing. Use slang? Write it. Have a few regional expressions you like? It’s all up to you. You can facilitate voice by giving yourself the freedom to say things in your own unique way. You don’t talk exactly like anyone else, right? Why should you write like everyone else?
Check your drafts. Is the attitude and tone consistent throughout? Are words or phrases repeated? If you stumble while reading your own writing, work on that section until it flows smoothly.
Be confident in the basics like grammar and punctuation. When you know how to put any kind of sentence together correctly you’ll feel free to experiment and let loose with your storytelling.
Be aware of what draws your attention. Spanish philosopher said, “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.� What are you passionate about? What drives you nuts? What images draw you in? What sentences touch your soul? What quotes speak to you? What words do you love—or hate? All of these can be sources of your voice. Create a Board of all the things draw your attention to get to know yourself.
Don’t edit while you write. Your voice won’t fully mature if you edit as you write. Try producing new material without deleting as you go. Leave a string of your not-quite-right words and ideas. What happens if you erase your first thoughts and ideas? You interrupt the flow that will soon lead you to what you really want to say. Tidying as you go cuts off your process. Learn to tolerate seeing the mess so your voice has room to grow and permission to show itself.
Focus on your reader. Have an authentic audience in mind because purpose is key. Are you writing for a bored housewife? A business person? A child who is just beginning to learn to read? When the audience is a specific person, group, or organization, writers can choose details that create personalized context, word choices that resonate, and varied sentence structures.
Create a lexicon for your project. Research the setting of your novel. If you’re novel is set in the past, research the era that you are writing about to insure your voice and facts provide authenticity. If you’re story is set in a specific region of the world, educate yourself on everything about the location. Search poetry, history, guide books, and novels. Write down only what attracts you. This is nourishment for your voice and your project!
Read your writing aloud. You can’t recognize and then strengthen your voice if you don’t hear it—and hearing it in your head isn’t the same as hearing it spoken aloud. Get in the habit of reading what you write out loud.

An Exercise to Find Your Voice

Describe yourself in three adjectives.
Answer the question: “Do these adjectives describe how I talk?�
Imagine your ideal reader. Describe them in detail. Then, write to this reader, and only this reader.
Make a list of at least five books, articles, or blogs you enjoy reading. Spend some time studying and comparing them. How are they alike? How are they different? What is it aboutÌýhow they’re written that intrigues you? Often what we admire is what we aspire to be.
List your favorite artistic and cultural influences. Are you using these as references in your writing, or avoiding them, because you think people wouldn’t understand them.
Ask other people: “What’s my voice? What do I sound like?� Take notes of the answers you get.
Free-write. Just go for it. Write in a way that’s most comfortable to you, without editing. Then go back and read it, asking yourself, “Do I publish or want to publish stuff that sounds like this?�
Read something you’ve recently written, and ask yourself, “Is this something I would read?� If not, you need to continue to work on developing your voice.

I hope you find these tips and exercises helpful for developing your writing voice. Do you have more tips or ideas to add? Tell us in the comments.

We will see you Monday, for Motivation Monday.

Write On, Writers!

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Welcome to another Write About It Wednesday!

This week my mind has been on Cruises. My brother and sister-in-law just got back from a cruise to Cozumel. They went with some friends for a Bachelor/Bachelorette Party. They’ve been posting photos and sharing stories about the experiences and adventures they had during their trip. It turns out that my neighbor was on the same cruise as them too. Though none of us knew it until they got back and started posting pictures on social media. Such a small world! But this had me thinking about all the different stories that could happen in a cruise setting.

So, this week’s Write About It Wednesday topic is: Cruise.

Write about a disaster happening during a cruise � natural or man-made.
Write about a Meet Cute on a cruise ship.
Write a Flash Fiction WhoDunnIt set on a cruise ship.

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See you Friday for Free Topic Friday where we will be talking about a Writer’s Voice.

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Write On, Writers!

Happy Hump Day, Writers! Welcome to Write About It Wednesday. Hopefully your writing has been productive lately and the words have been flowing with ease, but if you have a little Writer’s Block � we’ve got the cure for you.

Write About It Wednesday is, as always, all about giving you something to Write About! We’re here to help you come up with topics to write about if you’re feeling uninspired and blocked. As John Rogers says, “You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.�

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So, let’s get writing!

This week’s Write About It Wednesday topic is: Snow.

Write about blood spreading across snow.
Write about your favorite childhood snow day.
Write about the woods on a snowy night.

Write on, Writers! We will see you Friday for Free Topic Friday!

Happy Motivation Monday, Writers! It’s the start of a new week. Time to get motivated!

I think Motivation Mondays are important for writers because it is easy to get down as a writer. It’s easy for us to lose motivation when we receive rejection letters or bad reviews. To be our own worst critics when we read our writing. To edit ourselves before we even get the words on the page.

So today for Motivation Monday, I want to talk about The First Draft.[image error]

Like I said above, sometimes we edit ourselves before we even get the words down. We, as writers, will sometimes sit frozen staring at the computer screen unable to write because we want to find the perfect word to finish the sentence. We need the perfect character name. The exact perfect description of our main character. The perfect simile or metaphor.

But the thing about First Drafts is: they don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be written.[image error]

Don’t waste your time searching for the perfect word. Don’t overthink what you are writing. Don’t waste your valuable writing time editing the same paragraph over and over. Just write what comes to you. Don’t criticize yourself while you are writing.

First drafts are just you telling yourself the story. You, the writer, putting your imaginary world and friends to paper. The plot holes don’t have to be perfectly filled and everything doesn’t have to be wrapped up with a perfectly neat bow. First drafts are meant to be messy and imperfect. That’s what the editing and revision step is for that comes later.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The First Draft of anything is shit.�[image error]

A few First Draft writing tips:

Focus on your ideas and how to organize them.
Let your prewriting/outline/plotting guide you.
Write rapidly and let your natural writing voice guide you.
Follow your Muse if you get inspired while writing a scene.
Feel free to skip around to different scenes while you write. There isn’t any rule that says you have to write in order.
Write everything that comes to your mind.
Do not delete scenes or paragraphs even if you rewrite them. Cut and copy them to another document or just keep both the original and rewrite until you get to the revision process.
Remember you will clean up the messy First Draft later.

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So keep in mind not to stress while you are writing. Stop worrying about being perfect. Just write![image error]

“The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.� � John Dufresne.

Write On, Writers!

See you Wednesday for Write About It Wednesday.

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