Making a Metaphor Revisited

Metaphors and similes can be very effective tools in description but what’s the difference? A simile is comparative, so we say something is like something else such as ‘the windows were like eyes’. A metaphor is saying something is something it isn’t such as ‘the windows were eyes’ (this is also personification which we’ll look …

Describing a Pause Revisited

Description can be very useful for creating pauses in stories and slowing them down. This doesn’t mean the story stops. What we mean is that the pace changes, for instance we may have a flurry of activity, a moment where the protagonist thinks everything is done, and then another flurry. Alternatively we may have a …

A Matter of Style Revisited

There is no one way to do description. Description, like any other aspect of writing depends on the writer’s style. There are ways to manipulate description based on punctuation, word choice, and so on but ultimately how much or how little there is depends on the writer’s style. For instance, Hemmingway was very much bare-bones …

Dicey Description Revisited

I've been turning my articles into a book and decided there were a few I'd like to revisit for new this readers so this week we're taking another look at using description in fiction. Monday - A Matter of Style, The description we use can vary depending on style. Tuesday - Describing a Pause, Description creates a pause wherever …

Fictional Attraction

There are many different types of attraction but in this article we’re going stick with sexual attraction, of which there are many famous instances of it being downright wrong, and by wrong I mean disturbing. We addressed some of this in an article on Describing Women where the language used is often inappropriate. Another common …

Writing Attraction

This week we're looking at different ways of showing attraction between our characters and making readers root for relationships. Tuesday - None Wednesday - Fictional Attraction, Writing attraction is more than saying a character is pretty, how else can we show it? Thursday - None Friday - None Saturday - A new episode of Rum Cove …

Did You Mean That?

There’s a theory that goes when we’re writing we should be definitive so no ‘almost’ or ‘sort of’, the problem is that language doesn’t quite work like that, not being definitive also has a place. Whether or not we make a description definitive is a choice which depends on intent. The problem with the idea …

Getting Definitive

This week we're looking at using definitive or vague statements in our work. Tuesday - None Wednesday - Did You Mean That? Almost, sort of, do we mean to be vague or are we muddling things? Thursday - None Friday - None Saturday - A new episode of Rum Cove Victorian Mistress, the edited version …

Edit That Novel!

So, we’ve finished our novel and now we might have 60,000 or more words to edit. How are we going to do it? We’ve looked at how to edit the words here, but what about the quantity? When we have an entire novel to edit doing the whole thing can look like a terrifying prospect, …

Editing Novels

We've looked at editing our words but how do we approach editing a complete draft? Tuesday - None Wednesday - Edit That Novel! Looking at different approaches to editing a complete novel draft Thursday - None Friday - None Saturday - A new episode of Rum Cove Also on Saturday stop by twitter to join in my new …