Photo by Sean Mason , via Flickr Oxford English Dictionaries online defines a sentence as ”A set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.” In fiction, an enormous amount of leeway is given in sentence length and structure according to the novel’s genre. Short sentences increase tension in thrillers that feature fast-paced scenes. Dialogue-heavy fiction gives the author an opportunity to play with fragments and short, snappy exchanges. The secret is to understand what a sentence is before messing around with it. One of greatest failings of modern education is the removal of sentence diagramming from the study of writing. Editor Linda Lane explored this topic in her Blood-Red Pencil post, Excuse Me, Please, I Need a Diagram . Linda noted, “Knowing the parts of speech helps us use words most effectively...

Scene from Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), starring James Stewart & Lionel Barrymore I’ve been writing half of my new novel from the antagonist’s point of view, and two uncomfortable but important thoughts crouch in the back of my mind as I write his part of the story: 1) He doesn’t know he’s the bad guy. 2) I don’t always know when I’m the bad guy. In real life, nobody knows when they’re Mr. Potter, because everybody wants to believe they’re George Bailey . (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please find the classic Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life and watch it.) My antagonist knows he makes mistakes, but he believes that’s because he’s only human. In many ways that’s true, although this guy does such bad stuff that massive rationalizations are required for him to chalk it all up to being “only human.” Rationalizing our behavior is what we all do when we make choices we’re sure will benefit us but either aren’t sure, or hav...

This post first ran on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 A while back, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop given by best selling romance author, Linda Howard . While the focus of the workshop was the Twelve Steps to Intimacy, I've already done a number of blog posts on that topic, (you can read a summary here ) Most of my books are romantic suspense, which puts them under the romance umbrella, which means the majority of my audience is female. I know there's an XY reader contingent of this blog, so any feedback from them is welcome. I write books from the points of view of both men and women. Obviously, it's easier to write "female" but I do try very hard to make sure my men are actually "men" and, as the title of this blog suggests, not women with chest hair. One of the topics Linda Howard covered was writing details. She pointed out that this was one place where men are really different from women. Women write detail in sex scenes, while men...

Genre is the promise you make to your reader to give them the kind of story they want without annoying them by giving them information they don’t want. So what happens when your premise, that brilliant story seed that came to you in a dream or while pacing your kitchen at 3:00 a.m. on a sleepless night, doesn’t fit neatly into one of those broad categories? What if the term genre makes you feel slightly nauseated or makes you fear you’ll have to kill too many darlings?  The answer lies in the story skeleton you select and how you layer the conflicts. Let’s say you have a brilliant story idea about a scientist named Dick trying to win the heart of Sally, the girl of his dreams. Meanwhile, Jane asks him to solve the problem of a meteor streaking toward earth. In addition, Dick really hates Ted because Ted is eager to replace him as head of the space defense department. You want to cram all of this into one story. But what kind of story is it?  That depends on h...

 Thanks again to Terry for stopping by with another helpful post. Watch Those INGs Feedback from a critique partner pointing out every time I'd used an "ing" word made me stop and think about this verb construction. At the very first writer's conference I attended, an agent said she would reject a query with more than 1 sentence beginning with the "ing" construction. Her explanation—it's too easy to make mistakes with that sentence structure. But is it wrong? No. You have to be careful, and you have to pay attention. There are different reasons to avoid, or minimize use of those pesky "ing" words. First, the dangling modifier. In my first critique group, I held the prize for creating an answering machine that gave neck massages. I'd written, "Rubbing her neck, the blinking red light on the answering machine caught Sarah's eye." Ooops. (But I would like a machine with that function!) Make sure the noun or pronoun c...

No, I’m not talking about the fashion police coming after you. I’m talking about those little errors and bad habits that creep into your manuscript, weaken your message, and add up to an overall feeling of amateurish writing. The good news is that, unlike the more critical creative flow of ideas for plot and characters, these little bad habits are easy to correct, resulting in a more polished, compelling manuscript. 1. Take out wishy-washy qualifiers such as quite, sort of, almost, kind of, a bit, pretty, somewhat, rather, usually, basically, generally, probably, mostly, really. Forget “He was quite brave,” or “She was pretty intelligent” or “It was almost scary.” These qualifiers dilute your message, reduce the impact, and make the imagery weaker. Take them out. Even very is to be avoided. It’s like you’re saying the word after it needs reinforcing. “She was beautiful” packs more punch than “She was very beautiful.” 2. Show us, don’t tell us how your characters are feeling. Avoid st...

  The first mystery I wrote, Doubletake, was a collaboration with a woman who was … how can I put this delicately…very hard around the edges. Margaret had been around the block more than a few times and could hold her own with any sailor or truck driver when it came to colorful language. At that time, I was a mother of young children who had worked hard to never say anything harsher than "hell" lest my little darlings hear things they shouldn’t. The way Margaret and I worked on the book was to each write a chapter and then get together to trade pages and  add our touch to what the other had written. Margaret looked over my first attempt to write something from the killer’s point of view and said, “Maryann. A deranged killer is not going to say, ‘Gosh, golly, gee.’ He’s more apt to say, #(#*#*&,  @)*$&$,   #*@&#.” “But I can’t write those words. I’ve never even said them.”  Margaret grabbed me by the hand and took me out behind her barn wh...

A couple of days ago, I visited a creative-writing class at Montana State University Billings , invited by an instructor who is kind of enough to have me come up once a semester to meet with her students. The instructor, Sue Hart (so complete a repository of knowledge about literature of the West that she ought to be a national treasure), told me that this class, in particular, was lively and engaged on the topic of writing. She wasn't kidding. In a rollicking 90 minutes, we covered a huge range of subjects related to writing and publishing. Of those, two stood out as particularly salient in this time when those who aim for traditional publishing are facing intense competition and those who lean toward independent publishing confront a huge marketing challenge. To protect the innocent, I'll identify the question and not the questioner: Since a publisher provides editors, how much do I have to worry about grammar and punctuation? An honest question deserves an honest answer: You...

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, there are over twenty definitions of “ character .” Here is one that is particularly important to us writers: “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.” Throughout the course of a story, your character [main character(s)] will undergo change(s), and it is through his/her features and traits (the things that make up the character) and his/her actions and speech that will illustrate the change(s) for the reader. What do you know about your characters? Hopefully more than what’s in the book or books your readers devour! As creator, we should know our characters inside and out. Their fears, their desires, their likes and dislikes, everything. Of course, we don’t put all of these things into our books because readers would cry with boredom, and we would never get to the point of the book – the actual STORY. When we know from which our characters come, it helps us to develop strong, comp...

Great villains often make great novels. Your protagonist will be measured by the strength and cunning of her antagonist. Indeed, since the villain is often the prime mover of the plot, his motivations become crucial. In The Silence of the Lambs , Agent Clarice Starling must figure out the motivations and thought processes of two different serial killers, Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill. Sherlock Holmes requires a Moriarty; Superman, his Lex Luthor; Batman, his Joker; Bond, his Blofeld; and Luke Skywalker, his Darth Vader. Without the villains, there would be nothing for the hero to do. Some authors, realizing that their most creative efforts are going into devising a fascinating, complex villain, simply make their villain the protagonist, alá Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment . I grew up in the 60s and 70s, the heyday of the anti-hero and the villain-hero. The Man with No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, the Submariner, and Dr....

People may think editors are a little too anal, nit-picking over the smallest detail, but sometimes that smallest detail, when it’s wrong, can jerk the reader right out of the story, and that’s the last thing an author would want to happen. One of the details editors look for is continuity, making sure that the time-line is correct and making sure that an object or a person is properly introduced. You don’t want a character to pick up a gun that was never on the table. In filming, there is a person who carefully notes what is in a scene, where items and people are, what characters are wearing, etc, so if that scene has to be re-shot, everything will be in the right place. That person also watches the time line, making sure that costume and set changes are made when time has passed in the story. For novels, it is part of the editor’s job to watch that time line and make sure everything and everybody is in the right place at the right time. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. For instance...