Story Sensei

This article originally appeared as a series of blog posts. Because of the nature of the web, blog tours have become an effective marketing tool. However, like most marketing strategies, it’s hard to quantify how effective it is in terms of sales. Regardless, blog tours are low cost and get the word out (buzz) about you and your book, and that’s never a bad thing. Also, if you’ve got a website contest going on, a blog tour is a great way to get the word out about it, because you can mention the contest at each blog on the tour. Please use the following guidelines to help you schedule the time you’ll need for the blog tour. You’ll need time the month before the tour in setting it up (contacting people, writing guest blog posts or answering interview questions), and you’ll also need time during the tour to email reminders, to post the daily stops on the tour, to comment on each blog on the tour, and to correct any mis-posts. Setting up a blog tour: You can hire a publicity co...

This article is a collection of the Deep Point of View blog post series. Deep Point of View, part one The point of going deeper in your limited third person point of view is to stick the reader in your character’s skin. This will often result in a more powerful emotional experience for your reader. There are some tips to follow that pull the reader deeper into the character’s point of view. Often a judicious word choice does the trick for you without changing the text. These things will work to pull the reader into the story world and experience the story through the character’s eyes, in the character’s body. It usually gives more intensity to the reading flow. Eliminate emotion words. Many times, when a writer names an emotion, it distances the reader from the character. For example: Anxiety trembled in her stomach. Anger coursed through her. She shivered as fear tiptoed down her spine. It’s not that it’s wrong to name the emotion—in fact, sometimes it makes the ...

This article originally appeared as a 12-part blog post series. Many beginning writers are confused about the concept of point of view. I’m hoping this series of blog posts will help you out. After I finish the series, I’ll condense it into one blog post article. What is point of view? It’s the type of narration of a story. For the purposes of a writer, it’s easiest to think of it as the eyes through which your reader sees the scene. There is third person, second person, and first person point of view. First person is told from the character as the narrator. I’ll be covering that later. Second person is not used often. It’s the type of narration where the character is referred to using personal pronouns, which serves to make the reader into the character. I remember this type of narration in the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Third person is most often used. In third person, the characters are distinct from the storyteller, who is essentially the author. Most readers...

What in the world are "pantsers" and "plotters"? There seems to be lots of discussion on the web about the two different writing styles, "pantsers" and "plotters." There are "pantsers" who write off the seat of their pants--they have the important aspects of the plot in their minds, and they write to see how the story unfolds. They are also known as “fly into the mist” writers. Then there are "plotters" (sometimes affectionately termed “plodders”) who outline everything beforehand so they know what they need to accomplish in their chapters as they write. Some people are a little bit of both. Ultimately, whichever writing style you choose is based on your personality and preference. When I first started writing, I was a "pantser". But as I wrote more, I experimented with "plotting" and discovered that style enabled me to write my personal best. Plotting became a painful but necessary process for me...

I love martial arts movies and action flicks. So naturally I'd write action scenes. I discovered that it takes a slightly different writing style. These are some of the things I learned, although this list isn't exhaustive by any means. Action-Reaction A fight scene is always Action-Reaction. He punches, she staggers back. She kicks, he blocks and swings a fist at her. Watch out for putting your reaction before your action: She staggered back when he slammed his fist into her shoulder. The rule of thumb is to have each action-reaction have its own paragraph, although that’s not always possible. Sometimes the sentences are too short for their own paragraphs and can be combined. It’s up to the writer how to format it: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. versus: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. Short sentences = fast reading flow Use short sentences and phrases to make re...

This article came out of the contests I've judged. These are some of the common things I see in most entries when it comes to hooks, description and backstory. Starting with description--pros and cons. There are two camps about starting a scene with description: 1) Most historical writers and some sci-fi/fantasy writers like the whole idea of the novel like a movie camera, panning into the scene and describing the setting in detail to place the reader there before anything starts to happen. 2) Most suspense/mystery writers tend to start with action, and to give details of the surroundings and what's happening through subtle hints in the dialogue or narrative. Each method can be done poorly. If you spend too much time setting the scene or if you don't do it well enough, an editor won't get past the first page because it's too boring--nothing going on. On the other hand, if you land the reader in the middle of action but don't do a good enough job orienting the re...

As a writer, I admit I'm not raring to go at that keyboard 24/7. These are things I do when I don't have the motivation to write for whatever reason--laziness, stress, antsy-ness, boredom. In no particular order: Small chunks —Tell yourself, I’ll just write for fifteen minutes. It might be an excruciating fifteen minutes, but it’ll be fifteen minutes more than you had before. Then take a break, get distracted, go crazy. Sit and Pray —Sit in front of that computer and quiet yourself. Remember your desire to serve God with your writing. Ask God for help to motivate yourself to start typing. Snacks —Since we’re all careful about our health, go easy on this one, but sometimes your brain can speed up while you sit and munch on snacks, or sip your favorite tea or coffee. Comfort —Take a moment to notice your comfort level at your writing station. Back or neck pains? Room temperature too hot or too cold? Too noisy or too quiet? Bad smells? Too dark or too bright? Adjust accordingly. I...

Dwight Swain's classic book Techniques of the Selling Writer was one of the best writing craft books I read when I first started learning how to write. It was written in 1982, so the language is a bit dated, but the techniques he gives are still excellent and applicable today. Several of my friends mentioned how hard it is to read his prose (which is rather rambling, I'll be the first to admit) so I wrote a series of articles based on his book. These articles were originally published in RubyZine , a Christian e-zine for teen girls. I hope these techniques from Swain will help other beginning writers form a solid foundation for their skills to build on. 1-Emotions and the Writer 2-Choosing Understandable Words 3-Choose Vibrant Words 4-The Larger Picture: Character, Setting, Story 5-The Smallest Picture: MRUs 6-Scene and Sequel: Scene 7-Scene and Sequel: Sequel 8-General Story Structure and Strategy For Your Novel 9-Your 50-Word Elevator Pitch 10-Beginni...

Feeling and emotion is the basis for every good story. Think about it. The stories you remember are not the intellectually-stimulating ones, but the ones that made your heart race or your eyes tear up. Your job as a writer is to make your reader feel emotion. But it's very hard to make your readers care if you don't feel for you write about. You will write your best pieces when you care about the topic or the characters. Now, don't go overboard and start preaching. Readers are turned off by writers on their soapboxes. But do write about what interests you. Find a topic, theme, character or plot that makes you excited. Do certain song lyrics make you cry? Was there an intriguing event in yesterday's news? Do you have a character talking in your head? Technical skills: A good writer writes with emotion, but EDITS with solid technical skills. You don't want to be misunderstood or to turn out a piece that doesn't accurately reflect what you're fee...