I wonder if she thinks of me? Here again is another helpful post from our guest, Jodie Renner. How do you express thoughts and inner reactions in fiction? Thoughts, like dialogue, need to drive the story forward and sound natural and appropriate for both the thinker and the situation. For this article, I’ve purposely used the term thought-reactions, instead of just thoughts, because in fiction, in any given scene, we’re in someone’s point of view, so in their head, privy to their thoughts. In that sense, all the narration for that scene is, or should be, in their thoughts, written in ordinary font, with no special punctuation or thought tags. For example, in Sandra Brown’s Ricochet , we’re in Duncan’s point of view. We read: “Within seconds Jenny appeared. All six feet of her, most of it sleek, tanned legs that looked like they’d been airbrushed to perfection.” This is obviously Duncan’s viewpoint and his opinion/thoughts. No need to say “he thought.” Thought-reactions, on th...

Jodie Renner is our guest today sharing some pointers on description. Fiction writers—one of the fastest ways to bring your story world and characters to life is to portray the setting through the senses, feelings, reactions, and attitude of your protagonist. Enhancing your fiction by filtering the description of the setting through your viewpoint character’s senses is a concept I instinctively embraced when I first started editing fiction about six years ago. I was editing a contemporary middle-school novel, whose two main characters, a boy and a girl, were both eleven years old (details slightly changed). The author had them describing rooms they entered as if they were interior decorators, complete with words like “exquisite,” “stylish,” “coordinated,” “ornate,” and “delightful.” Then, when they were in the park or the woods playing and exploring with friends, each tree, shrub and flower was accurately named and described in details that were way beyond the average preteen’s kn...

Many thanks to Jodie  for sharing these tips with us today. Have you finished the first draft of your novel, and maybe gone through the whole thing again once or twice, revising as you go? At this stage, it’s a good idea to ask some trusted volunteer readers to read through your manuscript and offer suggestions. Then you can incorporate any ideas you like into your final draft, and then, ideally, hire a freelance editor to give it a final polish before you self-publish or send it off to literary agents. So how do you find these beta readers? Perhaps through a critique group, writing class or workshop, a book club, or readers or writers you’ve met through online networking. It’s best to avoid getting your parent, sibling, best friend or significant other to do beta reading, as they’re too close to you and may be afraid of offending you and jeopardizing your relationship. Three to five trusted readers would be optimal, as more could become overwhelming, and fewer may not give you...

In keeping with our February theme of Love, guest blogger, Jodie Renner, shares her love of reading and some of her favorite books. Enjoy. I Love Reading Fiction Reading fiction has always given me pleasure, from way back in my early school days in a small mining town, where the teachers usually provided novels for us to read in our spare time. The world of exciting stories was a magical discovery for me—coming from a large, working-class family, we had very few books at home. Some of my earliest favorites were Heidi and The Bobbsey Twins series. Then the Nancy Drew mysteries, horse and dog books like Black Beauty and Old Yeller , and historical fiction like Little Women, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn —and lots more that I can’t remember. (Yes, I know I’m seriously dating myself here!) In high school and university, I discovered classics like Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird , Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, Catch 22 , and others. I’m sure you can ...

Check Your Facts, Ma’am! You’re busy creating your story world with your right brain, rolling along with the great plot and developing your characters while your muse is buzzing. Great! But later, when you’ve got that first draft done, it’s important to switch to your left brain and go back and check for continuity, logic, and accurate information – or get someone else to do it for you. As you’re writing,  you may assume everything makes sense and all your info is correct, but at some point, step back and reread for logistics. While you’re at it, verify your facts, to avoid annoying or even alienating your readers – and eroding your credibility. “But,” you say, “I’m writing fiction, so who cares about facts?” You should, because you want to create a credible world for your readers to be drawn into, and if an erroneous fact jars them out of it, they’re going to be annoyed. Think about watching a movie about Ancient Rome and suddenly you notice a watch on one of the gladiators. ...

HYPHENS, ELLIPSES, DASHES Ellipses vs. Dashes; Hyphen, Em Dash and En Dash  A.   Ellipsis (…) or Dash (—)? In fiction, An ellipsis (…) is used to show hesitation : “What I meant is…I don’t know how to begin…”  (Also indicates the omission of words in a quoted text.) A dash (—) , also called em dash, is used to show an interruption in speech: “But I—” “But nothing! I don’t want to hear your excuses!” or a sudden break in thought or sentence structure: “Will he—can he—find out the truth?” The dash is used for amplifying or explaining , for setting off information within a sentence, kind of like parentheses or commas can do: “My friends—I mean, my former friends—ganged up on me.” B.   Hyphen vs. En Dash vs. Em Dash: The en dash is longer than the hyphen but shorter than the em dash (the regular dash) A hyphen (-) is used within a word . It separates the parts of a compound word: bare-handed, close-up, die-hard, half-baked, jet-lagged, low-key, never-ending...

Here is another bit of advice from Jodie Renner. We always appreciate the fact that she is so willing to be our guest now and then and share some of her experience and expertise. You’ve spent months or years writing your novel. Then you’ve found a writer friend or freelance editor to help you polish it up and get it ready to send to agents and acquiring editors. Maybe you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on a copy edit, detailed line-edit, or even thousands on a developmental or substantive edit. After many revisions, the manuscript is finally ready to send out to literary agents and publishers. The standard first approach is to submit a query letter and a synopsis. You’re eager to get the book out fast and you think, “Anybody can write a query letter,” so you whip one off quickly and send it around, with a synopsis you threw together. You wait. And wait. All you get back are a few form rejections. You know you’ve got a great story, well told, and your editor and/or writer friends have...

In Parts 1 and 2 of this topic, I gave examples of deep point of view or close third-person POV. Here’s one more example: Say you’re writing a romance, and you’re in the heroine’s point of view, showing her thoughts, perceptions and reactions. The hero, whom she’s just met under unfortunate circumstances, is angry. You’ll show his thoughts and reactions, not from inside him at that point (What the hell is going on here? he thought. What’s she trying to pull off, anyway?), but by what the heroine is seeing and perceiving—his tense posture, hunched shoulders, clenched fists, furrowed brows, set mouth, clipped tone of voice, angry words, etc. The general rule of thumb is “one scene, one viewpoint.” Or even better, wait for a new chapter to change the point of view to someone else’s. If you change the viewpoint within a scene, it’s best to do it only once, and leave a blank space before you start the next person’s point of view. Ping-ponging back and forth can be jarring and confusing ...

As I discussed in Part 1 of this topic, Deep Point of View, or How to Avoid Head-Hopping, in order to draw the reader in and grab her emotionally, every story needs to have a clearly dominant viewpoint character. We should meet that character right away, preferably in the first paragraph, and the first scene or chapter should be entirely from that character's point of view so the reader can start bonding with him or her. But how do we as authors go about this? Suppose you’re writing a story about a macho  guy named Kurt, who defeats the villain, restores justice, and even gets the girl. It’s Kurt’s story so he’s your main viewpoint character. How do you make sure that your handling of his viewpoint is as powerful as it can possibly be? The first thing to do is imagine the setting, people, and events as they would be perceived by Kurt, and only by him. As you write the story, you the writer must become Kurt. You see what he sees and nothing more. You know what he knows and noth...