Five Habits to Avoid in Fiction Writing | Scribendi.com - 0 views
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By avoiding these habits, your fiction writing will be greatly improved.
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People, places, and things (i.e., nouns) have names, and it's your job to know what they are. Precise nouns work wonders in fiction writing because nouns have connotations or meanings that go beyond their dictionary definitions.
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This information could hint at what time of year it is (tulips are pretty scarce in September) and could also tell us something about the character who gives the flowers.
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There are at least 12 synonyms for the verb to laugh, and each one evokes a specific image. A character could express amusement by cackling, chortling, chuckling, giggling, guffawing, snickering, sniggering, tittering, crowing, whooping, simpering, or smirking
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Reading good dialogue makes readers feel like they're actually listening in on a real conversation. Because of this, it can be very disruptive if the author keeps butting in to tell readers that the speaker intoned or declared or asserted or retorted.
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It may seem like using "said" repeatedly in dialogue tags is repetitive, but in fact the little word is so inconspicuous, it just fades into the background—which is exactly what we want when we're trying to listen in on a good conversation. The rare deviation is fine (asked, in particular, seems to be okay once in a while), but if you find yourself using a colorful synonym for every dialogue tag in your manuscript or screenplay, you may be doing more harm than good.
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Third-person narration can be either limited (an objective narrator tells the story by focusing on a particular character's thoughts and interactions) or omniscient (the narrator sees and hears all)
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many writers, in a misguided attempt to make their fiction writing descriptive, overuse these words.
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Carrying a steaming and fragrant mug, she walked angrily and loudly into his office. Why write that, when you could have simply said: Carrying her peppermint tea, she stormed into his office. The second sentence actually gives us more information using fewer words.
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there are some great examples of novels that experiment with point of view by switching between narrators. But even in these stories, some kind of predictable pattern is imposed for clarity, such as a change in narrator from one chapter to the next, but not within a chapter.
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Are they talking about the weather? Because if they're talking about the weather, you'd better have a good reason for it.
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the worst habit a fiction writer can develop is the habit of giving up too easily. Keep writing every day.