Body language and dialogue play equal roles in communication. Sign language interpreters are engaging and expressive. While their hands sculpt meaning for the hearing impaired, their facial expressions drive home the emotional tenor. As a public official reads from a prepared disaster statement in calm tones, the interpreter punctuates the message with sharp movements and facial expressions that convey the true seriousness of the situation. Body Language When writing dialogue, channel the sign language interpreter. Have your characters jab with intensity and sway as if buffeted by hurricane force winds. Display emotion not only in facial expression, but with shoulders, posture, gaze. Imagine you are observing your character from across…
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Choose Your Words
Word choice can make or break a piece of writing. When you find the perfect words, they will convey the exact tone, expertise, and information you want your reader to have. Tone Word choice can set a serious or humorous tone. Consider the following: Ricky puffed out his chest and flexed his arms Ricky thrust his chest forward and struck a strongman pose The first example shows preening where the second paints a humorous caricature. A tear slid down her cheek A tear coursed down her cheek One is a trickle the other a torrent. Or consider Spoiled children Spoiled brats Two distinctly different vibes emerge by…
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Writers Wear Many Hats
With Halloween days away, I’ve been thinking about how writers wear many hats. As children, Halloween is an excuse to slip into another skin. If you dream of being a firefighter, it’s perfectly acceptable to portray yourself as one. Likewise, if you have an obsession with Freddy Krueger, no one will bat an eye if you don a fedora and strap on some wicked fingernails. Costuming How does this apply to writers? Well, unless you are a memoirist or nonfiction writer, you make stuff up. You create firefighters or Kruegeresque characters with nothing more than a vivid imagination and a keyboard. Feel like writing a character who works at a…
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How do You Name Your Character?
I like my character’s name to be compatible with the time period. For instance, if my female character was born in the 1920s I’m inclined pick the name Evelyn or Doris. But if my female character was born in the 2010’s I’m more likely to pick Emily or Madison. So how do I select a time-appropriate name? Historically Accurate When writing in a different time period, my go-to website is SSA. The social security administration has compiled the 200 most common names for girls and boys from each decade starting in the 1880s. Generally speaking, when choosing a character’s name, I pick a number before I pull up the list…
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Plot and Story
Plot and story: Plot is what happens. Story is how plot causes a character to change. Effective writing needs both. Back to School Assignment Every September of my school life, the first writing assignment was some variation of What I did over summer vacation. In retrospect I pity my teachers who were forced to wade through boring itineraries. I took swimming lessons. My sister and I played in the sprinklers with the neighbor kids. Our family vacation was driving to Aunt Wally’s and Uncle Pete’s. We swam in their pool with my cousins. It was fun. Bo-oring. That was merely a disjointed listing of events. If my summer vacation…
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Avoid Passive Voice
If you want your reader to feel emotion and action on the page, avoid writing in passive voice. It creates distance between the characters on the page and your reader, it dilutes the immediacy, and waters down action. The most common culprit is helping verbs. Passive Voice and Helping Verbs Ban helping verbs from your writing to eliminate passive voice. That may be a little harsh, but in all honesty helping verbs are the most common indicator that you have slipped into passive voice. When active verbs like take, sing, or walk are aided by a version of the verbs ‘to be’ or ‘to have,’ (also known as helping verbs)…
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All Dogs Bark
Four dogs loped toward us. I walked along a country road with Dusty, my Husky Lab mix. Public lands spread out to the left, the back side of a rural neighborhood to the right. The four dogs looked friendly enough. I led Dusty down to the wire fence for a sociable sniff. The middle-sized dog suddenly lunged at the fence, finding an opening almost big enough to penetrate while barking fiercely. We backed up and continued along the road which paralleled the dogs’ enclosure. All four dogs continued to bark as they matched our progress along the fence. The largest dog, maybe seventy-five pounds, let out a single woof every…
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Empathy in Writing
What does empathy in writing look like? The readers see and hear what the character does, as a result readers also feel what the character feels. How do you as a writer achieve this? You have to know your character’s wants, needs, fears, and motivations inside and out. Empathy is the act of feeling what others feel. Empathy and Desire Every well-written character wants something. Your job is to convey that to your readers in a visceral way. Make your readers ache along with your character. As obstacles thwart your character’s desires, readers will slip into the character’s skin and experience pain and loss, love and longing as if they…
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Head Hopping
Head hopping is the act of being in more than one person’s mind at a time. Why does this matter? Several reasons. First, it is confusing to the reader; second, it robs the reader of getting to know a character through his or her thoughts, history, and actions; and third, it interferes with the storytelling. Paragraphing Paragraphs are the writer’s friend. They organize chunks of text so the reader can better digest them. We learned in school that paragraphs start with a topic sentence and every sentence that follows must pertain to that topic sentence. We also learned, when writing dialogue each time the speaker changes, a new paragraph is…
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Charismatic Characters
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about charismatic characters. They can be heroes or villains; sometimes they are both. Love him or hate him, President Trump is a prime example. What makes him irresistible to so many people? Like all charismatics he has an over-size personality, a willing audience, and a message. Oversize Personality Charismatic characters are larger than life with confidence levels off the charts. They model attributes desired by their followers, whether it’s wealth, power, or spirituality. Stung by their peers’ rejection, these individuals channel exuberant confidence to cultivate a space where they are revered. This space is occupied predominantly by politicians, religious and cult leaders. Willing Audience…
