Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors

By allowing your characters to communicate with their bodies as well as their mouths, you can open up a whole new layer of nuance in your dialogue.

If you haven't already done so, make music a part of your writing routine - and reap the benefits of immersion in the magical realm of stories without words.

Every once in a while, dare to step outside the bounds of normalcy and see what unexpected adventures you can find off the beaten path.

Maybe journaling is a mine of creative gems for some people. Maybe it is conducive to that sometimes elusive dance with the muse. But maybe it's also a waste of time.

Some of the most powerful stories in literature and cinema have a surprising common element: The death of a main character. At first glance, this would seem to be an instant turnoff. Why hang with a character for 300+ pages only to watch him get knocked off in the end? But the truth is, when handled properly, the death of a character can add untold power and pathos to a tale.

When a reader pokes his bookmark in between the pages, stretches, yawns, and drops a novel back on his nightstand, it's a terrifying moment for both novels and novelists alike. This is the moment we've worked and sweated and prayed to avoid. And yet it's a problem that few of us will entirely escape in our careers.

How do you know when to heed criticism? How do you know what's worth listening to? You can start by asking yourself the following six questions.

Fiction writing doesn't offer many shortcuts or magic formulas. But today I am going to give you give you a secret ingredient in that coveted recipe for memorable and realistic characters. What is this ingredient? Dichotomy.

As much as we want readers to intellectually appreciate the intelligence of our writing, we need them, even more, to react to the underlying pull of the story and its characters with utter, unthinking emotion.

Facing the wide, blank unknown of a story can be scary. Putting one foot in front of the other, when you're unsure of the terrain, can be overwhelming. But when you can work your way backwards from a known plot point, finding your way becomes as simple as filling in the blanks. And the result is a story that falls into order like a row of expertly placed dominoes.

Whenever your comfort zone starts getting too comfortable, it's a sure bet you're no longer challenging yourself. Writing scared means pushing yourself to the limit, tackling projects that look unconquerable, and always forcing yourself to go just a little bit farther than you think you're capable of going.

Experienced writers have learned that less really is more. Readers have great imaginations, and experienced writers have learned how to tap into them to make their own work come across more vividly and more believably. Experienced writers have learned how to give only the essential details of a scene in such a way that readers imagine everything else.

Experiencing art is like watching clouds. Two people can lie on the same grassy hill, watching the same cloud formations. But how they interpret the shapes of the clouds is an entirely individual experience. You may see a poodle on a leash, while in the same cloud, I see a drag race.

Know your audience is a common tenet of all media. After all, if you don't know your audience, you can't give them what they want, right? Yes and no.

Unfortunately for us harried writers no surefire pattern exists for the perfect opening. However, most good beginnings do share a couple traits. Following are nine.