The Line Forms Where? Knowing Where to Start Your Novel

By Janice Hardy

If your first pages don’t grab readers, your problem might not be the writing—it might be where you started.

Openings are hard, especially if you're not sure if you're starting in the right place. The sheer amount of "is this opening working?" submissions I get in Real Life Diagnostics is testament to that.

The old "start with the action" has frustrated many a writer due to its ambiguity, and even when we think we've done it all correctly, beta readers can still feel the opening isn't grabbing them.

I've talked about first lines and first pages before, so today, let's focus on figuring out where to start your story, and how to diagnose it if you're worried you're starting in the wrong place.

First, analyze your current opening, either the first scene or the first chapter if it's only one scene:

Want to Improve Your Writing? Change Your Thinking

By Janice Hardy

A mental shift in how we think about our writing and process can change our perspective, and thus, help us see the things we’ve been missing.

A long time ago, when I was still fairly new to writing, I had my mind blown by a simple “change of perspective” in how I looked at writing. It was a light-bulb moment that finally made me understand something I’d been struggling with at that time—point of view.

In the years that followed, I’ve had plenty of moments where changing how I thought about something writing-related helped me understand it, or use it better. As I’ve spoken with other writers, I’ve seen the same lights go on in their eyes as they looked at something they’d struggled with and finally saw things click into place.

Theme Me Up: How to Develop Your Novel's Theme

By Janice Hardy

Theme is an often overlooked tool in a writer's toolbox. Here's another look at finding the greater meaning in your story.  

Several years ago, I attended a workshop on theme at RWA. It was a fascinating session, because the presenters were romance author Suzanne Brockmann and English professor and literary critic, Sarah Frantz, who studies romance in general, and Brockmann in particular. To see what the reader took away from the book versus what the author intended was quite interesting. They were similar, but not always exact. 

And that's okay, because everyone takes away something different from a book.

Some of the things they said made me look at theme in a new light, and made me think about ways to discuss theme that can be directly applied to a writer's work. Looking back on this, I can see how theme has become a much bigger part of my writing process, because a great book is about something, and we all want our books to be more than plots and characters. And using a theme is a great way to accomplish that.

Here are three ways a theme can help writers tell a richer story: