novel writing

How To Sprint

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is a writing sprint?

A sprint is a set amount of brief, uninterrupted writing time.

 Fun Facts about Sprints

~ The purpose of a sprint is get words on paper–fast.

~ A sprint is announced via social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

~ Someone will announce a sprint for a certain time, i.e. “Who wants to sprint at 11:00 a.m.?” and invite others to participate.

~ 1 hr/1K is a common sprint, meaning the goal is to write 1,000 words in 1 hour.

~ Ironically, the key to a successful Sprint is turning off or away from social media during the sprint.

~ People who join in the sprint often report in after it’s over and announce their progress.

~  The value of a sprint is two-fold: to get words to paper, and to be inspired by a feeling of community.

~ Ironically, again, the community is usually a virtual (online) one.

~ Think Usain Bolt working on a WIP.  That’s a sprint.

Have you ever sprinted? Is/was it valuable?

Ramona

Love and Turkey Bacon

by Ramona DeFelice Long

The four men were cops, or federal agents, running through the rain at a Rest Stop off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They sported shaved heads, broad chests, suits with sunglasses poking out of the breast pockets, and belts with a firearm holstered on it.

It was early in the morning and the thunderstorm had hit hard and fast. We all landed in the doorway at the same time. We did the shaky-stompy thing, and then the youngest one opened the door for me, and we all squeaked across the floor to order coffee.

I ordered coffee. They ordered breakfast. I went first because the oldest one, clearly The Leader, said, “You first, ma’am,” in a perfectly polite but terrifying way that made me obey. If he’d have said, “Go away, you don’t get coffee today,” I probably would scurried right back into the rain.

The person taking my order told me they’d just put on a new pot of coffee, and it would be a minute. While I waited, The Leader ordered a breakfast sandwich of some kind–with bacon.

“Extra bacon,” he said, using the same polite and terrifying tone. “I’ll pay extra, but I want extra bacon, okay?”

The person taking his order didn’t miss a beat, but the man beside him started to laugh. He was the tallest of the four, and when The Leader shot him a dirty look, that made him laugh harder. I dubbed him Second in Command.

Second said, between chuckles, “Yeah, I’ll have some of that extra bacon too. Extra extra, if you got it.”

Third guy was short, barrel-chested, and had a lethal pair of dimples. He didn’t order, per se, just slapped his hand on the counter and said, “Extra bacon! Hooah!”

Finally came number four, the polite young man who’d held open the door for me. He was The Rookie.

The Rookie stared up at the order board, and I had one of those visual epiphanies writers get when they’re spying on people in a public place because those people are interesting. Which is another way of saying, I’m going to rip off this moment of your life and use it in my fiction.

My epiphany was, The Rookie didn’t like bacon. Or he preferred ham or sausage or maybe, gasp!, he was a vegan or vegetarian. I had a flashback to the moment in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the aunt says, “He don’t eat no meat!” in a tone of utter disbelief. It was that dramatic.

My coffee arrived just when The Rookie leaned forward to order. That made him pause, and look aside at his cohorts, and he must have had an epiphany, too. His seemed to be, if I don’t order bacon, these guys will take me out to the car and stuff me in the trunk.

“Uh, I’ll have the uh, breakfast sandwich, with uh, bacon.”

The Leader nodded his approval. I picked up my tray. The scene I could steal, I thought, was over.

Wrong. Half of the eating area was roped off for cleaning, so I pulled up a table and they pulled up beside me. This, I decided, was karma’s way of telling me to eavesdrop.

I listened to karma, and to The Leader as he unwrapped his sandwich. He sniffed it like it was perfume, or a freshly mowed field of grass, or a baby’s head after a bath, or something equally exquisite.

Second in Command did the same thing. Then he said, “God damn whoever invented turkey bacon.”

Hooah chuckled. The Rookie looked confused. The Leader closed his eyes, bit into his sandwich and gave off a moan that I rated NC-17. Second in Command did the same thing.

The Rookie picked at his meal and finally said, “What’s wrong with turkey bacon?”

If anyone from the National Council for the Advancement of Turkey Bacon is reading this, I apologize. I am only relaying the story. Don’t kill the messenger.

According to the lively conversation that followed, turkey bacon is something wives like to inflict on unsuspecting husbands. It’s a marital rite of passage. To the man, turkey bacon signifies three things: he is getting old;  he can no longer eat like an indestructible kid; he is not really the master of his castle.

For the wives, it’s a gesture of caring, love, and concern. It means she wants to spend many long, happy and healthy years together. Strict obedience to the turkey bacon shows she is loved in return.

In short, according to the The Leader, even though you hate it, you shut up and eat the ****-ing turkey bacon if you want a happy home life.

But…when you’re away from home and can’t get caught, you stop for fast food and order bacon. Extra bacon.

The Leader pointed at Second in Command and said, “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”  Second’s mouth was crammed full, so he gave a thumbs up.

This was all very interesting, and kind of cute, and I was ready to stand up and leave when Epiphany #3 happened.

Hooah shook his head at the two big men being naughty by eating bacon on the DL. “You two are pathetic,” he said. Then he looked at his sandwich. His dimples faded and he added, “Of course, if my wife had cared enough to make me eat turkey bacon, we might still be married.”

Maybe he meant it as a joke. Maybe he didn’t. The rain had slowed and I wanted to be on my way, so I left my table without hearing whatever followed. But the message of turkey bacon stuck with me the rest of the drive.

In fiction, it’s often the small gestures between characters that show feelings:

~ A man puts his hand on the small of a woman’s back as she walks through the doorway ahead of him. That shows intimacy.

~ A woman crosses her arms over her waist when her boyfriend stands near her. That can show discomfort, or fear.

When you read about a young male character buying an engagement ring, this tells you two things: first, that he’s in love; second, that there is someone in the story who will care about what happens to him. His emotional value in the story just doubled. If he gets hurt, that hurt will spread to the person who loves him.

At the rest stop, the first two cops savored the extra bacon, but at the end of the day, they would go home to someone who cared about them. They recognized that turkey bacon means love. They were smart enough to know it and appreciate it and, if they were going to disobey it, do it on the sly.

How do you show caring, or love, or intimacy between characters?

Ramona

The Good Girl Writer

by Ramona DeFelice Long

There’s an early chapter in Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft that relates how, in first grade, young Stevie had an infected eardrum lanced. The ear doctor assured him the first time–and the second time, and the third time–that it would not hurt.

This was not true. Having a needle stuck into his infected ear to puncture his eardrum did indeed hurt young Stevie. A lot. If you read the book, you can tell it still hurts Stephen King, though perhaps not in physical pain so much as psychic pain. Continue reading “The Good Girl Writer” →

How To Use Transitions to Trim Word Count

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarWhat is a transition?

According to Merriam Webster Online, a transition is “a: passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change.”

In fiction writing, transition words connect and carry different parts of the story. Transition words act as bridges between moments and ideas.

This post will focus on time transitions.

Good plotting hinges on an ever-flowing stream of action. The action may be small and quiet, or big and exciting, but as long as the actions are connected, logical, and move forward, the reader can be pulled along. Transitions help that flow by jumping the character from one act to another.

Transitions can be via a single word: later, meanwhile, finally, next, during, afterward, before

Transitions can be in pairs of words: and then, after that, soon after

Transitions can be more specific phrases: an hour later, the next day, on Saturday, a month went by.

Single and short word transitions like those noted above are used in scenes to bridge movements and short passages of time. A specific phrase like “an hour later” takes a bigger hop in time, and perhaps to a new location.

Transitions can also be shown without using words. A new chapter can denote a transition, but what if the writer wants a significant change in the scene without starting a new chapter? This can be accomplished in two ways: using white space or centered marks such as an asterisk (***) or pound sign (###). The white space or marks are visual signals to the reader that there has been a significant change in time or place.

The above is all basic writing info. What does it have to do with trimming word count?

Transitions can replace details that are unnecessary to the story. As I  have quoted (many times) before, “Everybody sleeps, gets dressed, and goes to the bathroom, but that doesn’t mean I want to read about it.”

This applies to characters and getting someone from one place to another, either physically or in time. A manuscript gets bogged down, and the word count shoots up, when a writer records unnecessary movements.

Let me illustrate, using characters from my pretend novel Bad Sale.

Richard, the farmer, has just returned home from town. He walks into his house and tosses his keys on the kitchen table. His wife Jillian is on the phone. She hangs up and announces his friend Simon called, begging for Richard to meet him at a hunting cabin in the woods.

This is a fairly common development in a mystery. A friend in need calls. The protagonist, because he’s a good guy, answers the call. Trouble ensues.

What Richard would do is…

… run his hand through his hair to show irritation, pick up the keys to his truck, walk out to the truck, open the door, get inside, close the door, insert the keys in the ignition, strap on his seat belt…..stop at the light in town, change the radio station, stop at the next light in town, turn on four lane highway, adjust his hair in the rearview mirror, settle back for the long drive, punch the radio button because he hates this song…..turn into a 7-11, cut the engine, pull out the keys, unlatch his seatbelt,  get out of the truck, go inside, pour coffee into a go-cup, go to the counter, ask for cigarettes….turn down the cabin road, avoid the potholes, pull up to the cabin, turn off the engine, unlatch his seatbelt,  check his hair again, pull the keys from ignition, open the door, toss cigarette on the ground, stamp it out, walk to the cabin.

The ellipses indicate spots where I could have shown even more mundane, unimportant actions. What this paragraph says to the reader is one thing:

Richard drove to the cabin.

Unless something in there is important—such as, if Simon was killed at 7:22 and Richard is a suspect, will the store video showing him there at 7:19 be noteworthy? Of course. But if at 7:22 Simon is sitting safely on the cabin porch drinking a beer, we’re back to one thing:

Richard drove to the cabin.

What’s wrong with just writing Richard drove to the cabin? It’s abrupt. It needs a transition.

Here are examples, using transition words, specific phrases, and no words.

Richard walked into the kitchen and tossed his keys on the table. Jillian was on the phone. She looked irritated, or maybe worried. She hung up and said, ”That was Simon. He wants to meet you at the cabin. Now.”

Richard said, “Now? I’m bushed. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so,” Jillian said. “He sounded desperate. I think you should go.”

Richard ran a hand through his hair, and then he picked up his keys from the table.

An hour later, he pulled up to the cabin.

OR:

Richard walked into the kitchen and tossed his keys on the table. Jillian was on the phone. She looked irritated, or maybe worried. She hung up and said, ”That was Simon. He wants to meet you at the cabin. Now?”

Richard said, “Now? I’m bushed. Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so,” Jillian said. “He sounds desperate. I think you should go.”

#

Richard pulled up to the cabin. It had been in his family for three generations, and his worry over Simon was forgotten for a moment as Richard walked toward the porch. It drooped on the right side. When had that happened? One of the window shutters sagged off its top hinge. He felt a punch of guilt. This cabin had been his grandfather’s pride and joy, and  now it looked ramshackle. Family treasures should be treated with care and respect.

Simon stepped out onto the porch. Richard stumbled in shock.

The break skips the boring and unimportant drive and puts us at the cabin fast. A single transition or two–and then, an hour later, white space–cut out oodles of extra words.

As a writer, if you need to write how Richard got to the cabin because walking the characters step by step through the action is your process, fine! Use your process. But in the revision phase, go back through the draft and ask if the READER needs to be walked through step by step.

If you are sending your reader on long boring drives with a guy who checks his hair and buys cigarettes for excitement, use a transition to get to the cabin fast. That’s where the real action is, right?

Ramona

Why Your Mystery is Like a Lost Puppy

by Ramona DeFelice Long

cropped-ramonagravitar.jpgSome time ago at a conference, I sat with a friend and bemoaned the state of one of my stories. “It’s lost,” I said. “It’s like a lost puppy.” She laughed, which I took as encouragement to pursue this analogy. Below is the result, which I shared with my scene-writing class for mystery writers:

A lost puppy is wandering around the neighborhood of your story. Because your Main Character is a decent human being, she scoops it up in her arms. The puppy is wearing a collar but there are no tags that would provide an easy solution. Continue reading “Why Your Mystery is Like a Lost Puppy” →

Why Your WIP is like a Train

by Ramona DeFelice Long

Yesterday I began teaching an online course for a small group of writers. For the next five weeks (three weeks on, two off), we’ll be examining how to write effective scenes. It will be fun.

I posted an introduction  that included the following little story. Some ideas cleave onto a person’s brain because they are simple and memorable and make a lot of sense. The train story is one of those: Continue reading “Why Your WIP is like a Train” →

How To Kick the That Habit

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is a That Habit?

The overuse of the word that in a narrative.

Check out any article with a title like “Five and a Half Ways to TightenYour Writing” or “Sixteen Unnecessary Words You’re Sure to Regret” and I’ll lay bets the author will bring up the word that. Why? Because that packs the double whammy of being misused and overused. Continue reading “How To Kick the That Habit” →

How To Scale the 100 Page Wall

by Ramona DeFelice Long

What is the 100 Page Wall?

The 100 Page Wall is a barrier that hits a writer at or near the end of Act 1.

Has this ever happened to you? You are enthusiastically writing a new story, either free writing or working with a loose mental outline. The words flow out onto the screen or page in such a beautiful rush, you are convinced this book will write itself.

And then – bam! Your momentum slams to a halt. You reel back, your enthusiasm changed to exhaustion. The rush is gone, replaced by the realization that you’re not quite sure where to go next. Or maybe you’ve started to head down the wrong way. Or–gulp!–maybe there’s no way to head and your story just died.

Welcome to the 100 Page Wall.

That is my term and this is my theory, but it’s a theory based on working with a lot of writers and hearing repeatedly about this experience. It’s always the same: the author starts on a new idea with gusto. For about 100 pages, the author writes without a hitch, and then a hitch appears at 100 pages.

Why 100 pages? I think that’s how much new, free-floating story data the brain can keep before the need to organize and shape arises. This happens to planners and pansters both, so it’s not so much about method as a mental wake-up call.

The first 100 pages of a story is a busy lot. The conflict must be set up; the characters met; the setting presented; the story problem put forth; the hero/heroine journey laid ahead. These are the tasks of Act 1.

In a standard manuscript of 400 pages, Act 1 takes up about 1/4. When Act 1 ends, a protagonist makes a decision that will marry him/her to the conflict. There’s no turning back for the protagonist.

For an author, the end of Act 1 presents an equal commitment. Looming ahead is the vast Act 2, which will be a vast empty wasteland if you don’t have enough story to fill it.

The 100 Page Wall forces the author to take stock. And breathe. And realize, this book is not going to write itself. It’s like coming down to earth after being in the rapture of Easy Writing Land.

It’s fun to write 100 pages, but now the sticking-to-it begins. That middle is big. If you’re going to fill it up, you will need to work. If you don’t love the story as much on page 100 as you did on page 1, writing it may be turning into a chore that will only get harder.

Also, on page 1, you thought you had a great idea that would be a good novel. On page 100, maybe you’ve solved the story problem or you are close to doing so. This is where you may discover one of two things: you don’t have enough story to sustain a novel and/or you are really writing a short story.

How do you avoid hitting the 100 Page Wall? You can’t. You shouldn’t.

I think writers who hit the Wall do so because they need it. Whether it’s exhaustion, overload, commitment anxiety or running of out things to do next, the 100 Page Wall is a wake up call.

The challenge is not to panic. Because you hit the Wall doesn’t mean you need to stop. It means you need to pause, think about what to do next, maybe go for a walk, and do some planning before you move on.

If you can’t think of what to do next, or how to add enough to the conflict you’ve developed to make another 200-300 pages out of it, be grateful. You can put aside this story without investing more time on it–time that will be unproductive. Better to stop at 100 pages that didn’t go anywhere, than to write another 300 of a hot mess that wasted your time and effort. Moving on to a new story can be a positive act.

If/when you hit the 100 Page Wall, embrace the pause. Question why it happened, but in a productive way.

~ Should you stop and throw away this work in progress because an idea is not a story?

~ Should you acknowledge it’s the right size and shape for a terrific short story?

~ Should you soldier on because, after you think about it for a while, you know what’s ahead to enter the vast expanse of Act 2 and come out on the other side?

~ Should you stop free-writing and put down an outline or story board the middle so you can wrestle a plan out of it?

Have you ever made the brave decision to abandon a story that’s not working? Stuck with one because you knew it could be worked out but you had to wrestle with it a while? Or have you never hit the Wall and you are the rare and lucky author whose books just write themselves?

Ramona

This post is the copyrighted property of Ramona DeFelice Long. Distribute or reuse only with permission of the author.

Why Create a Pretend Novel?

by Ramona DeFelice Long

Here’s the log line for a novel I have discussed a few times during How To month:

~Bad Sale is a 95,000 word thriller about a farmer whose life falls apart after he is tricked by a boyhood friend into buying bomb-making supplies at the hardware store.

Notice my use of the word “discussed” in the above sentence. I did not use the phrase “I am writing” because I am not writing Bad Sale. I am writing about it.

What does this mean? It means Bad Sale is a pretend novel, a work not-in-progress but whose premise allows me to use it in instructive posts or practice exercises.

Many writers have a practice novel–you know, the one hidden in a drawer or under a bed or some other dark place. Sometimes there are more than one. (If you have a stack of them, be sure to check back here Thursday.) A practice novel is the one you wrote when you were learning how to write the  hard way, by writing. It’s probably awful. You’re probably ashamed of the purple prose, the blatant abuse of adverbs, the lexicon of dialogue tags that are anything but  “said”. And we won’t discuss the cardboard characters and the glaring absence of anything resembling a plot. Your practice book is a disaster.

Nevertheless, part of you loves your practice book, because it taught you how to write. You keep it in that drawer, as a reminder of the writer you were and, hopefully, the much improved writer you are now. The drawer is as much a place of honor as of shame.

A pretend book is not like that.

Here’s how my pretend book Bad Sale was born. One morning, while working on a lesson plan for an online course, I put together a glossary of literary terms referenced in the class. I needed an punchy example of a log line, so I did what I always do when I need inspiration: I went to the spare bedroom where we keep our spare books, closed my eyes and pulled out a book. It was A Simple Plan by Scott Smith.

A good choice. A Simple Plan is a cautionary tale about two brothers and a friend who come upon a crashed airplane full of money. It was dirty money, so it dirtied up their lives. A simple theme for a very compelling novel.

Halfway into trying to write a log line for A Simple Plan, I realized this was probably not a good plan. Writing log lines about published novels is a helpful exercise, but for my class, I should use an example of a book I wanted to discuss. I didn’t plan on discussing this particular novel; I planned to write original examples from…thin air, I guess.Which was not a good plan.

I glanced through A Simple Plan, noting what I’d liked about it: the honorable characters going about ordinary but pleasant lives; the married couple’s optimism about their first child; the brother who’s harmless but a bit of a ne’er do well; the friend who is not a great guy but they’ve known each other forever so they’ll have each other’s backs.

While written as a thriller, A Simple Plan could be in the oeuvre called bourgeois literature–stories about the middle class. Think Death of a Salesman. I like the idea of plain, honest, hard-working people struggling with extraordinary situations that test their moral boundaries and sense of honor.

Who’s more plain, honest and hardworking than a farmer? What situation is more extraordinary than domestic terrorism? What better tests a person’s moral boundaries and sense of honor than being asked to help–and then rat out–his oldest friend?

So was born Bad Sale. A good citizen gets duped by a pal into buying a list of ingredients on a government watch list. Oops. Now his life is ruined. Was he stupid? Was he trusting? Was he stupid to be trusting? These are questions I’d ask if i were writing Bad Sale, which I’m not.

Why am I not? Because I don’t need the story of Bad Sale, I need the premise–the idea–so I can explore it when I need it. Over the past month, I created characters (farmer Richard and his wife Jillian) and a situation when I needed to Show, Not Tell. When I wanted an illustrative example of how writers Stall, I sent Richard and his friend Simon to a hunting camp in the woods. Richard helped out again when I wrote about Reactions.

In short, when I need a character or situation to fit any situation, I pull out my magic hat of a pretend novel. Bad Sale can do and be anything I want it to be, because I’m not writing it as a full story. I just use the premise and the characters to suit my purpose of the moment.

What’s the value in this? What’s the good of popping in and out of a pretend story?

Unless you are exceptionally prolific and possibly suffer from multiple personality disorder, no one writes in every genre. I don’t write thrillers, but sometimes as an instructor, I need to write about a thriller. So, voila! I have an original story to call upon. I can fit in scenes for any teaching scenario or problem and it doesn’t matter if these scenes are necessary to the novel, because there is no novel.

What good does this do a writer, not an instructor? Sometimes we get so close to our stories, and know them so intimately, we can’t use them for exercises. Let’s say you’re taking an online class. There’s an assignment about emotions. You’re to write a character in a fit of rage. What if your fallback character–the one in your novel–never has a fit of rage? Does  this mean for the sake of the assignment you force an  emotion or scene on a character who would never do this thing? Is this a stretch for this character, or is it a falsehood to who they are?

If the latter is the answer, your fallback story could be a pretend one. I could put Richard into any generic situation and give him any range of emotion because he’s not limited by the reality of his story. A pretend person can do anything. When called upon, it answers.

Bad Sale is like a practice novel. It allows me to grow as a writer, to practice skills or try out tasks without committing to writing the full story. I can make mistakes with Bad Sale, and it doesn’t destroy my investment. I learn from it and it asks nothing in return. And I don’t have to hide it away. I use the bits and pieces of it when I need it.

Also, and importantly, it’s fun. I get to toy with these people, but I don’t have to write their whole story. Whee!

Have you ever toyed with a story you know you’ll never write?

Ramona

 

How To Choose Strong Verbs

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitarAfter I decided to write a How To post every day for the month of May, I declared my intention to writer friends and colleagues and asked for topic suggestions. This is one of them:

“Use stronger verbs rather than modifiers.  People say don’t use …LY words, but they don’t explain why. The real task is using a more descriptive verb.”

What is a verb?

A verb is a word that shows action, being or doing.

Verbs drive the narrative of a story; verbs control pace, determine tension, reveal secrets. It is a hefty job, so selecting a strong verb to perform the sentence’s task is not a willy-nilly undertaking.

How do you choose a strong verb for every sentence? By breaking down word choice into three areas of consideration: Task, Precision and Structure

In every sentence, a verb performs a job. To make a good verb choice, think about the task to be performed. Second, choose a verb specific to the task. Finally, construct the sentence in a direct and powerful way so the verb is not impeded in its duty.

  1. Verb Task – What do characters commonly do in stories? They walk, run, climb, sit, jump, look, think, grab, pull, throw. This list could go on and on. To illustrate, let’s use the verb walk.

Walk is a good example for two reason. First, it’s common and universal. Second, it’s so common and universal, writers try not to use it, sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so good.

Here’s a task: We need to get a man to cross a courtyard to get to a gate, and he can’t walk there.

~ He went across the courtyard to the gate. Really? Visualize this. Tell me what “went” looks like.

~ He moved across the courtyard to the gate. Moved? Like, drifted? Packed up his suitcase so he could live closer to the gate?

~He approached the gate from across the courtyard. Hmm. Approach means to come or go near, but there is nuance to approach, a sense of intention. There must be something special at the gate, if he’s taking the trouble to approach it. So, if he gets to the gate and nothing special is there, the word is misleading.

Which leads to the next consideration:

  1. Precision –  Why do we want him across the courtyard to the gate? What’s going on in the story that, first, requires him to be near the gate and, second, can be heightened by a strong verb?

If there is an emergency near gate, he would run, sprint, hustle, dash, rush, bound.

If there is danger near the gate, he would creep, tread, sneak, tiptoe, steal, skulk, scuttle.

If there is an attractive woman near the gate, he would saunter or swagger, amble or meander, depending on his level of confidence.

There are many choices for the word walk, but not all walks are the same. Consider these homonyms: stroll, march, stride, tread, tramp. Visualize them. Does stroll look like tramp? No. Each verb is a precise way of walking. As such, each verb adds something else to the story. The guy still gets to the gate, but there is subtext to the verb choice that tells more.

One of my favorite illustrative examples of walking is the word lope. Close your eyes and picture a man loping across the courtyard to the gate. Now consider these questions:

~Is the man short or tall?

~Is he young or old?

~Is he healthy or infirm?

~Is he confident or timid?

~Is he worried or relaxed?

~Is there an emergency?

~Is he headed to a specific place or not?

Lope is great because it answers the above questions through implication–aka subtext.

Loping requires long legs, so the man must be tall. Loping requires strength to take long strides, so the man is probably young, healthy and confident. Loping is not slow but it is not hurried, so there is probably no emergency and he’s probably not worried. He may be headed to a particular spot and is walking in a determined fashion to get there, or he may be out for exercise. The last is hard to tell. Lope can only tell so much.

  1. Structure – A strong sentence construction gives power to all its parts. Write in the active voice. I have devoted two former posts on How To Be–or Not To Be–an Active Writer, part I and part II. Here are simple examples of active versus passive construction.

~ He rushed, instead of He was rushing.

~ He stalked, instead of He was stalking.

~ He plowed ahead, instead of He was plowing ahead.

~ He loped, instead of He was loping.

~ He walked, instead of He was walking.

Decide on the verb’s task. Find the word that best describes that task. Craft an active sentence and voila! You wrote a strong sentence.

To go back to the suggestion above and the comment about …LY words, think of this. If you are tempted to say someone walked quickly, don’t you mean he ran? If you write someone spoke loudly, don’t you mean she yelled? If you write someone cried piteously, don’t you mean they sobbed?

Choose a strong, precise verb and it will do the job on its own.

I dedicate this post to my friend and writing colleague, KB Inglee, who sent the suggestion at the top.

Ramona

Tomorrow’s Topic: How To Prepare for a Writers Conference