5 Top Fiction Writing No-Nos

Fiction writers who are good at what they do, enjoy what they do. They like creating something from nothing . . . well from an idea. They enjoy the craft and the process – heck, they love it!

But, with that said, there are 5 top mistakes all fiction writers need to be aware of and avoid.

1. You make the beginning of your story all roses.

While we’d all love to live in a peaceful, happy land, readers need something to sink their teeth into, especially at the beginning of the story.

The beginning of your story is the hook. It’s where you GRAB the reader and make her have to turn the page and want to know what’s going to happen to the protagonist.

Here are a couple of examples of ‘hooking’ beginnings:

“I have noticed that teachers get exciting confused with boring a lot. But when my teacher said, ‘Class, we have an exciting project to talk about,’ I listened away.”
“The Talented Clementine” by Sara Pennypacker.

“My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.”
“Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo

These two examples of children’s writing give you a good idea of what it takes to ‘hook’ the reader.

2. The dialog is weak, fluffy.

Having weak dialog can kill your story. You need your characters to have passion . . . to have life.

You want dialog that is strong and tight. You want the emotion (the conflict, the tension, the passion) to come through the words. And, you want to say it in as few words and as realistically as possible.

You want the reader to feel what the character is feeling at that moment.

If Bob is angry in the story, show it through his dialog:

“WHAT! Who said you could take that?!”
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
“No! You can’t. Now get lost.”
“Get your hands off of me!”

The tight, strong dialog goes for exchanges also:

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Bob yelled.

Gia spun around. “Oh, uh, nothing.” Her eyes darted to the door then back to Bob.

3. The story is predictable.

You’ve got to have some surprises in the story. If you don’t, it will make for a rather dull, predictable story.

For this aspect of your story, think questions.

- Why is the character in that situation?
- How did he get there?
- What must she be feeling, seeing?
- How can she get out of it?
- What might happen next?

Try to come up with four or five options as to what might happen next.

In an article at Writer’s Digest, the author advises to “Close your eyes and watch your scene unfold. Let the characters improvise. What are some outlandish things that could result? If something looks interesting, find a way to justify it.” (1)

Let your imagination run wild.

4. Your characters are one-dimensional.

For readers to become engaged in a story, they have to develop a connection with the protagonist and other characters. In order for this to happen, the characters must be multi-dimensional.

Characters need to be believable and unique. You don’t want them to be predictable or a stereotype.

According to “Breathing Life into Your Characters” by Rachel Ballon, Ph.D., “The essential components for creating successful characters with emotional and psychological depth—feelings, passion, desires, psychology, and vision—reside within [the writer].”

So, think about it. What conditions or characteristics does your character have?

- Is he stingy?
- Does she frighten easily?
- Is he a troublemaker of bully?

- Does he listen to good advice?
- Does she get along with others?
- Does he have a disorder such as ADHD?
- Does he have phobias?
- Is she dysfunctional?

- Is he musically inclined?
- Does she have an eating disorder?
- Is she materialistic?
- Is she a risk taker, fearless?

And, keep in mind that the more stressful an ‘inciting incident’ or event, the more reaction and/or adjustment there will be.

For example: If a child lost a pet, it wouldn’t be as severe as losing a parent.
If a woman separated from her husband, it wouldn’t be as severe as having her husband suddenly die.

So, using your experiences and innate characteristics, along with research, you can create multi-faceted characters.

5. You dump information into the story.

This is more of a mistake that new writers may make. I had a client who created the entire first paragraph of her story with ‘information dump.’

Having the protagonist tell another character his entire backstory, along with other details the author wants to convey to the reader is a no-no. Backstory needs to be layered or weaved into the story, not dumped in one big truck load.

You might also use a prologue to give backstory.

While there are other things to watch for in fiction writing, these are five of the top no-nos.

Reference:
(1) 5 Biggest Fiction Writing Mistakes and Fixes

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author, children’s ghostwriter, and author/writer online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Writers on the Move.

For more on writing, stop by Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi.
 Be sure to sign up for her newsletter and check out the DIY Page.

You can connect with Karen at:
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Creating your Main Character: Hit a Home Run

Bases to cover while creating your main character:

First Base: Make your character interesting

Give your character a flaw

A flaw, according to Webster's, is "an imperfection or weakness and esp. one that detracts from the whole or hinders effectiveness." A flaw, according to Kristen Kieffer, is a problem your character doesn't recognize that is getting in the way of a happy, productive life. In Kieffer's article, “The #1 Key to Creating a Relatable Main Character,” is a list of "REAL flaws, personality traits or characteristics that hold [your character] back from being the person they need to be in order to achieve their story goal and/or defeat the villain." To give you an idea, I have included a partial list of flaws. To find the complete list and more of Kieffer’s helpful information, please refer to the complete article.

Cowardice
Anger issues
Pride
Selfishness
Egotism
*Self-doubt

My character’s flaw in my WIP: She is riddled with self-doubt, which comes naturally to me, as an extreme lack of confidence was one of my major flaws as a youth.

Give your character a quirk

What characters come to mind because of their quirks? Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit is curious and mischievous, which gets him into trouble; A.A. Milne created a ravenous hunger for honey in her character, Winnie-the-Pooh, who couldn't fit through the rabbit hole.

What is the difference between a character flaw and a quirk?

Webster's defines a quirk as "a peculiar trait: an idiosyncrasy.” Two examples, in a nutshell: Batman is self-taught, and has made himself "the most brilliant and capable man he can be, and he uses gadgets and tools to appear otherworldly to his enemies." (1)

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: has extreme powers of observation; the power to detach his mind; and he keeps secrets.

Flaws and quirks help make your character interesting. Watch out for a too perfect character: Readers can't identify with your character if she is too perfect. Sure, she has challenges, but if they're overcome too easily, your reader will be bored.

Second Base: Give your character a worthy goal

In another Kristen Kieffer article, “How to Craft a Killer Character Goal for your Hero,” Kieffer makes a distinction between your character’s ambition, or what she desires, “something they believe will quell the dissatisfaction they feel in their lives,” which is what, evidently, many authors believe is enough of a goal; with “a specific and actionable goal that will lead your character into your story’s juicy conflict.” This article walks you through the process of “taking your character’s ambition and turning it into a powerful story goal,” and even says it’s simple!

Kieffer offers a list of key questions you can ask yourself to help define your character’s goals. Here are two:

1. How is my character dissatisfied with their life?
2. What does my character believe will bring them true happiness or contentment?

A second list is helpful in nailing down your character’s goal. Here is what I came up with for my character, using Kieffer’s list as a model:

1. She wants to go home to city life, is tired of the country.
2. She’s stuck in the country due to car trouble and needs to figure out a way to leave.
3. Here her goal changes: She realizes she can’t leave until the car is fixed, has been asked to help someone in trouble at the inn where she’s staying, and doesn’t want to leave until she solves the problem.
4. She does everything she can to solve the problem.
5. She solves the problem and is ready to go home.

If you are struggling with these issues, I recommend these two articles. Kieffer has helped me identify weaknesses in my story and has given me a way to strengthen those weaknesses.

Third Base: Give your character a special love interest

An analysis of your favorite stories can reveal elements you want to include in your own stories. Personal favorites are mysteries, thrillers, and adventure stories. For me, the story falls flat if there isn’t love of a dog, a horse, a romance, or my favorite: love between two friends.

Cover your bases with these tips and you will be well on your way to hitting a home run in creating your main character. Hit the ball out of the park and you can do it again and again in many new ballgames.

References:

(1) http://fandomania.com/100-greatest-fictional-characters-1-batman/ 
http://www.sherlockholmes-fan.com/sherlock-holmes-biography.html

Image courtesy of : http://clipartix.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Baseball-clip-art-free-clipart-clipartcow.gif

Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 100 articles for adults and children, and six short stories for children. Recently, she has completed her first book, a mystery/ghost story for children 7-11 years old, and is hard at work on Book Two in the series.  Follow Linda at www.lindawilsonauthor.com.

Tips for Building Your Community

Writing is a solitary occupation, hence we must find our community. It has been quite a journey to find where I fit, with the common ups and downs. I do know now where I fit and can settle into my writing practice and getting my work “out there”.

I am reading Jordan Rosenfeld’s A Writer’s Guide to Persistence, and in Chapter 2, Create a Practice she presents our need to develop our creative support team. Identify your one Champion who is a non-writer, your comrade writers, your trusted mentor, and your critique partner(s). Excellent! I appreciate her step-by-step breakdowns. Do check it out!

Gabriela Pereira is big on community as you will note in Chapters 21-27 of her diyMFA book and website (see link). She uses a learning-based approach focused on the big picture—what you need and why you build connections.
Building your community by Gabriela Pereira
https://diymfa.com/category/community
https://diymfa.com/

I’ve searched for a writing mentor for a few years. The ones I wanted to work with, because I love their books, turned out to be way too busy to mentor anyone. Another author I searched out as a possibility was busy working a publishing deadline—however, her website is so full of mentoring posts, well organized by subject, that I downloaded them and created a notebook for my study.

Then a friend of mine posted a link to a podcast for Mastermind Groups. After several discussion, we started our own mastermind group that is now two months old, has grown to four members and is building momentum. A mastermind group has a super networking strategy with six or seven members that are compatible but not the same. Listen to the podcast and see if it might work for you.
Mastermind Groups, Community of Writers - give you an edge
http://www.novelmarketing.com/101/  (Podcast and transcript notes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUXdq_KRiA4 (YouTube presentation 7Min)

We need readers and feedback for our work. I’ve been burned by a critiquing instructor but thankfully, after a “pause”, I didn’t give up. I eventually found a good environment for reading, and critique feedback. In addition, I found a group online that you might be interested in checking out. It is free to join and get acquainted. It is:
Critique Group Online Community 
https://www.critiquecircle.com/Default.asp
Deborah Lyn Stanley is a writer, artist, and editor.  She is a retired project manager who now devotes her time to writing, art and caregiving mentally impaired seniors.  Deborah writes articles, essays and stories. She has published a collection of 24 artists’ interviews entitled the Artists Interview Series.  Careful editing preserves each artist’s voice as they share their journey. The series published as monthly articles for an online news network, can also be found on her web-blog: Deborah Lyn Stanley : My Writer's Life .  Her “How-To” articles have appeared in magazines.
“Write your best, in your voice, your way!”

Throughout the Year Thankfulness and Gratitude

By W. Terry Whalin

During this season, we find many articles about thankfulness and gratitude. From my many years in publishing, I contend writers need gratitude or thankfulness throughout the year and not just around Thanksgiving.

The world of writing is full of challenges. You craft a query letter or book proposal and fire it off to a editor who has asked for it—and then you hear nothing. You wonder if they got it or if they hated it or what happened? Then you get a letter from a reader complaining about the typos in your most recent book. Or your phone seems to be acting strange.

Let’s face it: every writer faces problems and things they that don't work—for many different reasons. In the midst of these situations there is one constant that the writer can control: your attitude. Do you lean into the challenges and work on something different? Or do you face the day with gratitude and thankfulness?

I’ve not always been a proponent of gratitude and looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty. In fact, I’ve been working on my attitude and trying to center on gratitude every day.

A couple of months ago, Darren Hardy challenged listeners to his Darren Daily program that there were only 90 days until Thanksgiving. He suggested we keep a Thankful Journal about a friend or spouse. He asked us to write in that journal every day until Thanksgiving and then give it to the person on the holiday.

I’m not much of a journal keeper. I know many writers who journal but I never developed this habit. At the encouragement of Darren Hardy, I tried this Thanks Journal and have been faithfully writing in it every day. The results have been fascinating to me. Every day I’ve focused on gratitude and something I appreciate then wrote into this journal. If nothing else, it has spun my thoughts and attitude in the direction of gratitude. In a few days, I’m going to this journal to the person in few days. I plan to continue this pattern with a gratitude journal because I’ve found this process has been a significant help to my gratitude attitude.

Within the publishing world, there is much outside of the writer’s control. The one area you can control is your attitude. If you are grateful and thankful, that attitude will shine through to others. You will become someone who is attractive to others rather than someone always grumbling about this or that.

From my years in publishing, I’ve seen how the grumbler and complainers are perceived. The editors and agents may smile, treat you kindly and answer your complaints, but behind the scenes they are talking with their colleagues about how these complaints simply spread the poison to others. When these writers do not get encouraged to do another book, they wonder why. I would contend it comes down to attitude. Is your attitude attractive to others or repelling? If you are grumbling and repelling, then I encourage you to turn to gratitude and thankfulness and let it carry you all year long—not just on one day called Thanksgiving.

Let me know the steps you are taking for this attitude of thankfulness in the comments below.

Tweetable:


Writers need gratitude all year long. Read this article to learn the reasons.  (ClickToTweet)
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W. Terry Whalin is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing (and his work contact info is at the bottom of the second page). He has written more than 60 books including Book Proposals That $ell and Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. Terry has written for more than 50 magazines and lives in Colorado.  He has over 200,000 twitter followers.
 

SCBWI Book Critique Boutique

I've got exciting news.

On December 10th, I'll be at Touro College in Bayshore, Long Island selling books and giving 10 minute critiques for ONLY $10.

The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators is having it's first ever (as far as I know) Book Critique Boutique!
(If this has been done before by SCBWI, please let me know in the comments!)

If you're in the area, stop on by. I look forward to seeing you!

Karen

Amazon KDP Allows Author Copies

A while back, I was excited to learn that Amazon KDP (their e-book publishing program for independent authors) was streamlining the process so you could publish paperbacks through the same platform you publish e-books. Previously, you had to use CreateSpace, their paperback publishing program. Two processes. Two websites you have to check up on. Two separate payment systems. Two of everything. So combining it would be awesome.

Then I did some investigating and found several reasons not to be so excited. One of the main ones was that through KDP you couldn't order author copies at cost, like you can through CreateSpace. Author copies are pretty important for selling at appearances and local bookstores, for giving away as prizes, for putting your writing in the hands of people who don't like e-books or online shopping, for getting more honest reviews, etc. Yet KDP didn't do it.

Well, they've changed their mind. As of now, it's just available for "selected publishers," but they promise that within weeks, both proof copies and author copies will be available for everyone at cost (plus tax and shipping). Hoorah! It remains to be seen if they will be priced similar to their CreateSpace counterparts and if this new feature will make publishing everything through KDP the way to go, but it's something to consider.

For more information, go here:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202132360 (author copies)

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131440 (proof copies)

Melinda Brasher's fiction appears in Nous,  Electric Spec, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and other magazines  For an e-book collection of some of her favorite published pieces, check out Leaving Home.  

Her newest book, Cruising Alaska on a Budget; a Cruise and Port Guide helps budget travelers plan a trip to majestic Alaska.  Visit her online at http://www.melindabrasher.com

4 Writing Tips on Using Descriptions

Using descriptions can be a powerful writing tool. The most important thing to keep in mind is to use your imagination. Close your eyes and picture what your character is doing. Picture what the scene looks like then paint it with words.

Below are four tips to help you get a handle on writing descriptions.

1. You’ve got to engage your readers.

How do you do this? By showing them what’s going on.

Let the reader:

- Smell what the character is smelling.
- Hear what the character is hearing.
- See what the character sees.
- Feel what the character is touching.
- Taste what the character is tasting.

Let the reader feel like she’s there. Use your character’s senses to describe (show) what’s going on.

2. Use descriptions in action scenes.

Using an excerpt from Walking Through Walls, I could have said just said it was hot. But that wouldn’t show how hot it was for the protagonist, Wang.

The sun beat down on the field. Sweat poured from the back of his neck drenching the cotton shirt he wore. I hate doing this work. He hurled the bundles on a cart.

I used description to show the action scene. This helps engage the reader.

3. Use description to emphasis the scene.

While you should write tight, sometimes it’s powerful to use description to bring the reader into the scene. In the excerpt below, the protagonist of Walking Through Walls is on a path that could change his life forever:

Deep in thought Wang did not notice the black cat that crossed his path, or the black raven that swooped and almost landed on his head. He did not even notice the silver snake with the purple tail that slithered along beside him on the road. Wang only noticed that each step took him closer to the merchant’s home and the beginning of the road leading to his destiny.

I could have simply used a version of the last sentence to say he didn’t notice anything. But, this wouldn’t allow the reader to know what was going on around him - how absorbed he was in fulfilling his dream. It wouldn’t bring the reader into the scene.

In addition, the description used for that scene is brought up later in the story. So, it’s also helping move the story forward.

4. Don’t use description dumps.
While it’s essential to use descriptions in your writing, you don’t want to overdo it. And, you don’t want to give description dumps.

What this means is avoid going beyond what is needed to engage. Yes, authors did it years ago – they’d elaborate on descriptions for sometimes pages. And, I would think it gave the writer a sense of freedom to be able to describe in full what she was imagining - not having to worry about tight writing. But, it won’t fly today.

Today it’s about writing ‘lean and mean.’ It’s about thinking carefully about your word choices, your descriptions, and your character’s backstory. If you can say it effectively in two words rather than six, do it in two.

It’s about making sure everything thing in your story is moving the story forward. No sidetracking for a beautiful description. No sidetracking for over elaborating.

Weigh what will work and what is too much. Use balance in writing descriptions in your story.

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author, children’s ghostwriter, and author/writer online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Writers on the Move.

For more on writing, stop by Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi.
Be sure to sign up for her newsletter and check out the DIY Page.

You can connect with Karen at:
Facebook 
GoolgePlus 
LinkedIn 
Twitter 

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