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Tipsheet Articles That Focus on Technique
For your convenience, we've clustered all the tipsheet articles that focus on technique.
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Crossing Genres or Age Groups
Marg McAlister
For one reason or another, you might be thinking of switching genres, or changing from one age group to another. What are the problems you might encounter? Do you have to re-learn or un-learn anything? What are the differences, say, in writing for adults when you've been used to writing for children - or vice versa? . . . keep reading
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Inoculate Against the "ING" Disease
Marg McAlister
There's a very common error that gives away an inexperienced writer every time: the practice of starting too many sentences with a word ending in "ING". This leads to a secondary problem - monotonous sentence structure that soon has the reader's eyes glazing over. . . . keep reading
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Beware Monotonous Interior Monologue
Marg McAlister
A monologue is a long speech by one person. It can be dramatic, or it can bore the pants off listeners (or readers, if it's a character holding forth). The content has to be pretty dramatic for a monologue to work well. Interior monologue is a fancy name for 'thinking things through' at some length. It's similar to talking to yourself, but it's all done internally. . . . keep reading
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What Words Should be Avoided?
Marg McAlister
Is there any validity in a list of words that should be avoided? And if so, what ARE those words? Short answer: No word is 'bad' in itself. Long answer: some words can make your work seem pedantic, overwritten, or add 'distance' between the reader and the story. That's why Su was able to find a list of 'words to be avoided': because some words are used inappropriately (or too much) in the work of inexperienced writers. . . . keep reading
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Don't Distance the Reader
Marg McAlister
When critiquing a set task for one of my e-courses. I finished typing the following words: "This is one of those things that can create 'distance' between the reader and the character." Then I stopped and stared at what I'd written, thinking that I seemed to be saying the same thing rather a lot lately. So perhaps it was time to investigate the whole issue of 'distance' - particularly in regard to viewpoint slips, but with a nod to how you use your character's name, too. . . . keep reading
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Ann Harth
