Kim discusses “writing rules” in their newest blog post, quoting famous authors’ stances on how to handle writing rules when it comes to crafting the best story for your audience.
Author: Kim Lozano
Kim Lozano is an editor and creative writing coach from St. Louis. Her work has been published in The Iowa Review, North American Review, DIY MFA, CRAFT, and many other publications. You can find out more about her classes and the writing resources she offers at kimlozano.com
If you’re one of the majority of writers who could use a little more guidance than to “just do what works” when writing story openings, here are a few strategies for you.
If you suspect your story is boring, it probably is. But the problem might not be as catastrophic as you think. Here are some instances where you should check your story for the humdrums, and examples of what you can do to fix them.
If you want to give yourself a leg up, I suggest you add a revision step and edit your manuscript for creative word choices. Kim gathered five examples of how other writers have used creative word choices in various ways in their novels.
The inciting incident in your novel is going to be the event, early in the story, that will interrupt life-as-we-know-it for your protagonist. It will present your character with a choice from which they cannot turn back.
Consider the following strategies that can help you go about writing a prologue that will win over readers and agents alike with examples that come from books you should be able to find at your local library.
Setting is not just a place in which characters are pinned down to keep them from floating off into the ether. And writing setting should not be a static description of the characters’ surroundings. If you want your setting to help forward the plot, reveal character, convey mood, or any number of other narrative functions it can perform, you need to activate it. Here are some ideas that will keep your setting from amounting to mere backdrop or scenery.
The ability to describe is the key to great storytelling, but when it comes to depicting characters, our first impulse is often to go straight ….