This post originally aired on 11-06-2008, and I thought a reminder that we can write garbage in our first drafts would be helpful. Getting it right the first time is rare indeed. Think about this as you head into the New Year. Writing is a talent, a dream, an obsession, a release, a thrill, but it is also a craft. The words don't just magically appear on paper - all arranged at their finest. The words we love to read were painstakingly crafted by the author, paragraph by paragraph, line by line. Anne Lamott, a wonderful writer describes the process in her book, Bird by Bird , this way: “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts." And further: “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.” What wonder...

First published March 12, 2010. Writers often discuss development of their own writing "voices" but there is more to the idea than just this one aspect. Let's discuss some other voices in the writing process. I once reviewed a young adult manuscript that had many characters, all of whom had different voices. In this case, the reader was dealing with teen slang and regional dialect, foreign and biblical characters, as well as talking fantasy animals. Few of them at this point in the writing had really well-developed voices, easily distinguishable from each other, and they often left me confused as to who was saying what. It’s an issue that’s very important to the readability of a story, especially with an audience of young people who have shorter attention spans than adults. Each of your characters must sound distinct, and this is where revising plays a major role in honing a well-crafted story. The above scenario illustrates various kinds of character voices a writer...

This post originally aired on October 25, 2008, but since the debate continues in writing circles, I thought the refresher would be good. There is a lot said about avoiding the use of was in narrative because it can sometimes be a sign of passive writing. The danger there is that some writers avoid using that simple verb entirely. They hear in a critique group or in a workshop at a conference that they should get rid of passive verbs and replace them with active verbs. In many cases, that advice is right on, but there are times when using was is proper. That usage denotes an ongoing action or activity, something that started before the character arrived on scene and will continue when the character leaves. For example, “By eight o’clock preparations were underway in St. Peter’s Square for the general audience. Vatican work crews were erecting folding chairs and temporary metal dividers in the esplanade in front of the Basilica, and security personnel were placing magnet...

This is the magic of a well-written piece: for a few precious moments, you, as writer, hold the reader in the palm of your hand. Word choice, syntax, structure—all the elements of craft you spent so much time applying—fall away and your reader enters the world of story. Your story. Now come close, so I can whisper the secret behind the magic: the structure can only fall away if it existed in the first place. Yes, you need a great story idea and enough imagination to bring it to fruition—that’s its muscle. But to hold the reader in the palm of your hand, you also need some bones. Bones give structure to a living thing the way lumber defines a house. Imagine the first draft writer allowing his inner seven-year-old to build his first tree fort with wood, hammer, and nails. Now that he’s done, step back and let your adult self take a look at it. You decide it is…inventive. It flows nicely. Boards angle every which way, mimicking the branches on the tree. You climb the tree, eager to explor...

There is a lot said about avoiding the use of was in narrative because it can sometimes be a sign of passive writing. The danger there is that some writers avoid using that simple verb entirely. They hear in a critique group or in a workshop at a conference that they should get rid of passive verbs and replace them with active verbs. In many cases, that advice is right on, but there are times when using was is proper. That usage denotes an ongoing action or activity, something that started before the character arrived on scene and will continue when the character leaves. For example, “By eight o’clock preparations were underway in St. Peter’s Square for the general audience. Vatican work crews were erecting folding chairs and temporary metal dividers in the esplanade in front of the Basilica, and security personnel were placing magnetometers along the Colonnade.” (Excerpt from The Messenger by Daniel Silva.) In this same scene, the central character, Gabriel, stops at a caf...

In my last post ( Employing eTools) , I talked about when not to trust electronic tools. In this post, I'd like to talk about some ways to use the tools effectively. Since I picked on word processors last time, I'll start with them. Find and Replace Most modern word processors have a 'find' function which is used to find a specific series of characters and a 'replace' function that is used to replace one string of characters with another. I use these features to find all the places I typed the word "form" when I meant to type "from". I make this mistake (form for from) all the time. I know I do it, and I still don't see it when it happens. So I use find and replace. I do not use "replace all". Why not? Because "form" is a perfectly good word and sometimes I use it on purpose. Using 'replace all' would simply replace one error with another. Instead, I use "find next" to find each instance of "for...