All Write - Fiction Advice

Compelling – or effective – dialogue is an essential ingredient in every story because it not only helps to tell the story, it moved it along, it imparts necessary information for the reader, it reveals characterisation and it’s a great way to create conflict and drama. There are a number of ways writers can do this. A Sense of Realism One of the best ways to involve the reader is to give the dialogue a sense of realism. But what does that mean, exactly? By ‘realism’, there is an expectation from the reader that dialogue will reflect real speech to a degree .   So writers can use dialect or accented words, they can use ‘ums’ or ‘ers’, or even hesitations, stutters, or when dialogue is abruptly cut off by interruptions etc., as per these examples: ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I...I tried not to...’ ‘Er, I don’t honestly know,’ he replied. ‘He ‘bin around these parts, ya’ll.’ ‘And to think I ever wan--’ The rule of thumb is simple - don’t overuse them to the poi...

It’s every writer’s wish to create compelling and realistic dialogue. It adds to the enjoyment of a story; great dialogue gives it depth and structure, and more importantly for the writer, it accomplishes more than showing the reader conversations. Dialogue doesn’t just tell half of the story – or further the plot – it can move the story forward, it develops relationships, it can create tension, conflict an atmosphere and it can reveal character. It’s one of those things that can show the reader how skilled you are – it’s the difference between great dialogue and bad dialogue, and the latter is a sign that the writer hasn’t yet got to grips with how dialogue works. So, how can you make your dialogue compelling? Well, thankfully, there are multiple ways a writer can do this. He Said/She Said Let’s start with probably the most contentious element – dialogue tags and how they should be used. A dialogue tag is the ‘he said’ or ‘she replied’ etc., tagged on the end of the dialog...

In this second part we’ll continue our look at some of the elements that make a first chapter work. They are considered ‘key’ essentials to grab the reader, agent/publisher’s interest and lure them into reading your book and keep them reading. Introduce Conflict Conflict is the driving force for fiction; it’s at the very heart of every story and so it must be present in your opening chapter, but since conflict comes in all manner of guises, the conflict in question is the character’s main conflict and not the bullets and explosions and all out action kind. In a nutshell, what’s at the heart of the story? What’s the main problem, what must the character do to achieve this and who is standing in their way? That’s the type conflict the reader needs to know, rather than large, full scale conflict that might appear later in the story, because it allows the reader to become involved – they will recognise and understand such conflicts and empathise with your character. And once th...

That’s a question we often ask ourselves.   Does my first chapter work?   Is it interesting or intriguing enough? Would it make the reader want to read the entire book? The first chapter – indeed the opening sentence – needs to work if you want to grab the reader’s interest. It needs to make a statement. It needs to stand out in a huge crowd of other books. In fact, the first chapter needs to establish a number of things before you can consider whether it works or not. So you’ve done a story/chapter outline, you have a solid plot, you have your characters sketched out, you’ve chosen the POV and know the genre and who the target audience is. So now you have to make that first chapter work – regardless of whether you write your story chronologically (in order) or whether you write out of sync. You still need to make an impact and you need to keep the reader interested from the moment of the opening sentence of the first chapter. There are no hard and fast rules, but it...

as suggested by Susan Uttendorfsky. All writers are aware of some of the most common rules in writing – don’t use too many adjectives or adverbs, don’t rely on passive writing, use nouns and verbs for stronger narrative, don’t overuse ‘ing’ words, don’t overdo he said/she said dialogue tags and so on, but should they even be considered rules? That all depends on why you want to write. If writing is no more than a hobby, then rules are hardly going to affect what you do. If you want to be a published writer and you want to be taken seriously, then isn’t it best to keep to some of those rules? The best way to approach this is to remember that there are no ‘rules’ as such, other than those governing grammar and syntax. Those are rules we must not ignore. But fiction writing rules don’t really exist in the same sense. Everyone calls them rules, but instead they are more like guidelines and instructions. Everyone knows the ‘show, don’t tell’ mantra. We all know the ‘use nouns an...

Every now and then, all writers suffer from a writing slump. But what exactly is the slump? Is it writer’s block? Is it general apathy with writing? Is that moment when the novel stutters to a stop and you don’t know what to write next? The slump in question refers to a period when writers seem unable to write because they’re not feeling creative, they’re not inspired or they haven’t any ideas to work on. It’s an apathy of sorts, sometimes created by life in general and sometimes by negative influences. It’s a creative dry spell. The writing slump shouldn’t be confused with writer’s block. They’re not the same. One is the inability to write, through various things the writer has done to cause the block, while the other is a lack of motivation to write in the first place. From time to time, writers have to refocus. Slumps occur when other things take over – social media, family, other work commitments etc. The time writers normally spend being creative and inspired is constric...

There is no golden rule that a novel can’t be written in both past tense and present tense. But there’s an unwritten rule that says you shouldn’t mix them. So what’s the difference? Which one is right? This unwritten rule is often confused by writers as meaning that present can’t be used with past and vice versa. But the unwritten rule refers to the writer mixing tenses within the same chapter or scene. This generally doesn’t work well and can look untidy, and it may appear confusing to the reader, unless it’s expressly a flashback and hinted to the reader. But there is nothing stopping a writer from writing one chapter or new scene in past and others in the present, or some in present and others in the past, if done correctly. This approach keeps things tidy and allows the reader to follow the writer’s intentions. Present stories sometimes rely on past events to show the reader certain things – we know these as reminiscences or flashbacks, and these are permissible bec...