The Bandwagon: What I've Learned About Writing

What I've Learned About Writing - and What I Need to Learn

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Things I’ve learned in writing

1) Don’t start sentences with “It was” or “There were.”
2) Don’t use “she thought” or “she wondered” in deep POV.
3) 5 senses
4) give a sense of place and time at the beginning of a scene
5) show instead of tell, especially with emotion
6) POV (though I’ve become less of a purist – bad Mary)
7) Action tags ground you in a scene.
8) Don't use qualifiers, like kind of or almost - they weaken the emotional punch.

What I need to learn:

1) deeper emotion in each scene
2) how to plot
3) conflict in every scene
4) how to use dashes – why does that elude me? And does it stop me from using them? NOOOOO.

What have you learned? What do you need to learn?

3 comments:

MicheleKS said...: I've learned:
- to let my heroine's sarcasmn and sense of humor show
- to make sure my guys don't talk in paragraphs
- dashes are good (I have to refrain from using them at work - corporate correspondance is sooo boring)

What I need to learn:
- how to keep from doing monster revisions
- how to sell; 10:22 AM
Jennifer Shirk said...: I've learned to control my use of LY adverbs. (Control--not eliminate) LOL!
I've learned to let my voice come out more.

I still need to learn what my "niche" is.

I still need to learn to not make my hero and heroine so passive that all they're doing is reacting to people and situations around them.

I still need to control my use of dialogue tags.

I still need to learn how to plot better.; 11:51 AM
MJFredrick said...: LOL, Michele, I completely get you on NOT doing monster revisions!! My BANE!

Jennifer, it IS hard to make our characters active, isn't it? I love your list!; 9:58 AM