Writing Craft

Blog posts about the craft of writing: thoughts, resources, things to keep in mind, and more

Dialogue Does More Than You Know

by Cindy Rae

Here’s a few tidbits to consider.  Dialogue can

  • Be a vehicle for character
  • Help draw relationships
  • Reveal tensions
  • Create atmosphere
  • Help the reader read between the lines
  • Illustrate underlying emotions
  • Drive the plot forward

I will be pondering the above as I review dialogue in my own writing.

From Writing a Scene with Good Dialogue and Narration by Helga Schier, PhD over on Writer’s Digest.

 

Developing Writing Skills

by Cindy Rae

Spend a chunk of your time as a writer developing your writing skills.

An author gave that advice in one of the writing podcasts I listened to recently.  I’ve taken this advice to heart, allocating time and researching how to hone my skills (thank you, Writer’s Digest).

So, this month, I’m going to spend some time on word choice, sentence structure, and setting.  As usual, I’ll continue writing in the journal, writing for social media, and fitting in some work on completing some works in progress.

Character Arcs and Story Structure

by Cindy Rae

In addition to writing, I’ve been doing more research into story structure.

The problem is, my story doesn’t quite fit the standard model, as each of the three character arcs is well-formed enough to have its own introduction-conflict-resolution — but not at the same points in the overall story.  I think I can strengthen each character’s arc to be more of a solid story, though.

As with all writing advice, I’m going to let it sink in and discard what doesn’t apply.

I also may have too many scenes that are too short.  I’ll be looking at scene structure over the next month.