Where Was I Going Again? The Benefits of Re-Reading During a Revision

By Janice Hardy

A re-read might be the right path to find your story and fall in love with it all over again.

Many writers shudder at the very thought of revising their novel. Others curse. But I’ve always enjoyed the revision process (don’t hate me). I’ve found it’s where my best writing happens, because I know how my story turned out and I have a much better understanding of who the characters are and what they want and need to do.

Even if you’re a meticulous outliner, your final draft rarely matches your original plan exactly. And if you’re a pantser or discovery writer? Well, your manuscript may resemble your initial vision about as much as a squirrel resembles a spaceship. Though honestly, that can happen to plotters, too.

Because things change as we write. Motivations shift. New ideas pop up halfway through and suddenly alter our understanding of the plot. Characters do things we didn’t plan, and sometimes what sounded brilliant in Chapter Eight feels like a complete mistake by Chapter Twenty.

The Rule of Three and How it Helps Our Writing

By Janice Hardy 

Three is a magic number in writing, and can help you craft stronger stories.

There was a joke in my house growing up, that things always happened in threes—good luck, bad luck, it didn't matter. If the car broke down, that meant two other things were sure to break within a few weeks. Someone got a raise, well, then two more good things were certainly on the way.

Most of the time it did actually happen—but probably not for the reasons you'd think. Good and bad things happen all the time, but we don't always notice them or make the connection to other similar events. It’s part of our culture and so ingrained in our subconscious that we notice (if not seek out) patterns that fit this rule. 

5 Edits to Strengthen Your Writing, Right Now

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Making some simple word edits can turn a flat scene into one that sings.

Back when I was first learning how to write, I loved discovering a great writing tip--the ones I could immediately apply to my work and see actual improvement were the best. I got especially excited over lists of words or specific examples, because I could search and find the weak areas right away. Which is probably why I like to do a lot of lists and examples now in my own articles.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with a "weak word," they do tend to hang around trouble areas--just like those red flag words with show, don't tell. They're good places to start when something feels off in your work or you're getting negative feedback and aren't sure why. 

If you're looking for easy ways to improve your writing, here are great words to search for to identify potentially weak areas.

Let's a take a peek at a few of the more common troublemakers that often pull readers out of a story.

Stuck on a Scene? Try This Trick to Get it Moving Again

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The problem isn’t always where you think it is.

Before I dive in today, I'm also guest posting over at Writers in the Storm, sharing tips on How to Make Clichés Work for You. Come on over and say hello.

Unless you’re very, very lucky, at some point in your writing you’re going to get stuck. You’ll write yourself into a corner and won’t be able to figure out how to get your protagonist where they need to go, or maybe you’ll have no idea what the conflict is supposed to be. You’ll sit at the keyboard and grow more and more frustrated by the minute until you want to scream. Or take up botany.

It’s not writer’s block—you can write, it’s just that the scene has stalled and you don’t know what to do to get it moving again.

Instead of struggling to fix the scene that’s not working, try this:

The Real Problem With Passive Voice in Fiction

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Passive voice in a novel can put your readers right to sleep.

Before we dive in, a little heads up that I'm over at Writers in the Storm today, chatting about how to use clichés, metaphors, and similes to bring your story world to life.  Come on over and say hello.

And now on to our regularly scheduled article...

“Avoid the passive voice” is one of those pieces of advice most writers have heard and likely struggled with at some point. It’s good advice, since revising passive into active typically makes the sentence stronger, but like all things writing, simply doing it because people say so isn’t always the best idea.

Without understanding why a passive voice causes trouble, you might rewrite it when its actually the best thing for your story at that moment. It does have it’s uses after all.

So first, let's look at what passive voice means.

I used to be one of those folks who wrongly equated passive voice with all forms of the "to be" verb, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Because quite often, a “to be” verb is at the heart of a troublesome sentence, but a “to be” verb doesn't always signal passive writing. 

How the Setting Raises Tension in Your Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Your characters’ world provides opportunities to create mood and raise the tension in your scenes.

Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights is a perfect example of how a setting can influence the people in it.

The park is decorated with haunted houses and scary set pieces, and costumed staff (some with chainsaws) lurk in the shadows to jump out at guests. One group is startled and they scream, which makes everyone around them nervous, and just when people start to relax, another staff member leaps out. People who normally wouldn't be startled tend to shriek, because the setting already has them on edge.

This isn’t a happy coincidence. These staff members are trained to target guests who typically scare the easiest, so they look for younger people (particular teens and women) in groups, because they scream the loudest, and screams are contagious.

Why Query Letters Matter to Self-Published Authors, Too

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Part of the Indie Authors Series

If you’re self publishing, you might think your query-writing days are over—but they’re not (sorry!). The target of those query letters has simply changed.

A good query letter bears a striking resemblance to good cover copy. They’re both designed to entice a potential reader to pick up the book. The same skills that go into writing a strong query letter also apply to great cover copy, and you’ll need great cover copy for your self-published book. 

Think about it—a query for an agent or editor only needs to convince a handful of people to read the book. Cover copy has to convince every reader to read it. That’s a lot of pressure for a few paragraphs.

Luckily, some of the details that complicate a query letter don't apply to cover copy, which makes the process a little easier. 

5 Ways to Add Internal Conflict to Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Strengthening the internal conflict in a scene can lead to a deeper connection with your reader.

Back in my “still working out this writing thing” days, I didn’t even know what internal conflict was. I had a vague sense that conflict was the plot, and that it involved grand battles and exciting fight scenes (it didn’t, by the way). I thought that in order to write an exciting novel, I needed to pack it full of exciting action.

Since I’m a plot-focused writer, this misconception fit my writing style well and kept me struggling to understand conflict longer than I should have.

Eventually I figured it out and my novels improved. And once I knew what skill I lacked, I focused on developing that skill—in this case, conflict in general, internal conflict in particular. This “skill cycle” was also part of my process, where I’d hit a technical wall in my writing and then shift to learning how to handle it.

Sunday Writing Tip: A Trick for Finding Overused Words in Your Manuscript

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your manuscript to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week’s tip is a bit different, but one I find incredibly useful. It’s my favorite trick to easily spot specific words or phrases.

To find all occurrences of a single word in a manuscript, do a search for it and replace it with the same word in bold and red.

That makes whatever you’re searching for pop out. Not only will it be easier to find, you’ll be able to clearly see how many times you’ve used that word of phrase on a page. The bold red stands out even when you zoom out of the page and can’t read the exact words anymore.

Sunday Writing Tip: Add Tension to the First Line of Every Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at the opening line of each scene and chapter and make sure it has enough tension in it to draw readers into the scene.

We’ve looked at our scene openings before, but this time, let’s pat particular attention to the first line. Even if the scene itself has a hook, does the opening line have enough tension to get readers to that hook?

Sunday Writing Tip: Remove Unnecessary Dialogue from Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your manuscript to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at the dialogue in your scenes and remove what’s not needed.

There’s often a lot of empty dialogue in scenes, especially the beginnings of them. Characters greet each other and make small talk before they get to the meat of their conversations. Most of the time, that small talk weakens the scene and hurts the pacing.

It’s also common to find characters saying too much in a scene and giving away all the mystery and/or tension. They’re too open about their feelings, or too self-aware about how they feel. They might also answer questions just because the plot needs them to, when being true to themselves and staying quiet makes for a stronger story.

As they say, less is more, and that’s particularly true with dialogue.

Sunday Writing Tip: Show What Your Characters Are Afraid Of

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, think about what scares your characters, and where they worry in your scenes, and make sure readers can see that, too.

Fear is a great motivator, and often our characters are acting out of fear, or because they worry about terrible consequences.

It’s also a useful way to show the stakes in a scene, as characters typically worry about the things they might lose. And when characters worry, so do readers.

For more on adding fear (and this stakes and even tension) in your novel, try these articles:

• Creepy Clowns and Haunted Hotels—Unspooling Why Our Characters Get Scared
• Psychological Trump Cards That Cripple Us
• What Are Your Characters Ashamed Of?
• What Makes Your Characters Uncomfortable?
• Writing the Terror Scenes
• Why Every Writer Should Watch “Mama”
• Using Vocal Cues to Show Hidden Emotion
• 5 Ways to Convey Emotions in Your Novel
• Brainstorming Your Character's Emotional Wound

Sunday Writing Tip: Make Your Characters Vulnerable

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make your characters vulnerable. 

For compassionate people, seeing someone’s vulnerability tugs at our heartstrings and makes us connect, and even care. But in our haste to make our protagonist “heroic,” we sometimes forget to make them vulnerable, too.

Look for moments in your story where a character can exhibit vulnerability. Pay particular attention to highly emotional scenes, or scenes where you want to surprise readers.

Sunday Writing Tip: Check for Cardboard Conflict

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, examine your novel’s conflicts and make sure they’re not flimsy as paper.

“Your scene needs conflict” is something writers hear all the time, and while it’s true, it’s also easy to throw in a conflict just to have one. Problem is, that conflict doesn’t serve the story or accomplish the things a good scene conflict is supposed to do.

Check your scenes for conflict, but also really look at each conflict. Is it something that’s truly a problem to overcome that will affect the story, plot, or character in some way, or is it simply a flimsy obstacle that lets you say, “Yes, there’s conflict here?”

Sunday Writing Tip: Cut Unnecessary Internalization From Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check your scenes are remove any unnecessary internal thoughts.

Last week you added thoughts where they were needed, but this week, let’s focus on places where you’ve gone a little too far and let those thoughts ramble a bit.

A common place to to find unneeded thoughts is when there’s a lot of text between lines of dialogue—especially between a question asked and answered, or two statements made by the same character.

Sunday Writing Tip: Add More Internalization to Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check each scene for internalization. Are your characters sharing enough of their thoughts?

Last week, you added more emotion to your scenes. Emotion and internalization are often found together, so let’s build on that this week. Check your scenes and make sure you have enough internalization to show what the characters are thinking and feeling.

Aim for a good balance between thoughts that illustrate the character and how they feel about the situation, and the action and dialogue of the scene. While you don’t want a character who never shares their thoughts, you also don’t want one who’s too much in their head.

Sunday Writing Tip: Add More Emotion to Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, go through each scene and find three places where you can add or deepen the emotion.

Unless you’re writing a heavily plot-driven genre (such as a thriller or procedural), getting emotion into the story is vital. The more your readers connect emotionally with your characters, the more likely they are to love the book. “Not caring” is a big reason readers put a book down.

Sunday Writing Tip: Is Your Antagonist Plausibly Motivated?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, look at your antagonist(s) and ensure he or she has solid and believable motivations for their role in the story.

In many ways, the antagonist is the one who causes a novel to happen. If they weren’t doing something wrong, the protagonist would have nothing to do and no reason to act.

But it’s not uncommon to find antagonists who are “being bad” just because the plot needs a bad guy. They have no true motivations to act, no personally driven goals, and a plan that doesn’t really extend past “do something evil the protagonist can thwart.”

Pretend the antagonist was the protagonist for a minute. Do they have reasons that are just as strong as the real protagonist? Or are they acting just to be bad?

Sunday Writing Tip: Examine Your Protagonist’s Motivations

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make sure your protagonist has strong, clear, and plausible motivations for acting in the novel.

A common early draft issue is a protagonist who has no real reason to do the thing they’re supposed to do in the story. They act out plot because the story needs then to do it, not because something real is driving them.

Examine the motives and reasons why your characters are acting in your novel. Make sure they have believable reason to want to solve the problems they face, both for the main core conflict, as well as the smaller conflicts they face on a scene by scene basis.

4 Ways to Write a Better Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Writing a strong novel is about more than technical skills. It’s about storytelling.

I’d gather most writers started writing because they love to tell stories. Characters speak to them, worlds unfold in the their minds, and they see struggles to overcome problems and want to explore those problems. They want to share the amazing things they imagine.

Luckily, this is also why readers pick up a novel. They want to see what adventures we’ve dreamed up and what exciting tales we have to tell. They want to lose themselves in our worlds and characters same as we did.

When those two goals align, a book becomes magic. When they don’t, it sits unread and unappreciated on a shelf, or even a hard drive. And nobody wants that, least of all writers.