A Round-up…of Facts about the Daily Effort of Writing Fiction

If after a few attempts a particular sentence or section is not working, delete it. Following this maxim has never let me down. The remaining text has never suffered in the absence of the troubling material.

Good writing only comes of bad writing. There is no shortcut to successful prose. Thinking, outlining, discussing, researching, scheduling, obtaining instruction – these are all necessary, but they don’t result in functional paragraphs on a page. Only through writing do we arrive at a draft manuscript. Bad writing is not something to be avoided. It is something to be accomplished with the knowledge that it is the gateway to good writing.

Try writing from a challenging POV*. I recently wrote a short short story (flash fiction) from the perspective of a character that dies half-way through the narrative. And then I maintained that POV for the rest of the story. No POV should be considered off-limits. Such decisions often lead to more imaginative story because they cause the writer to think differently.
Especially try this if a story is coming off flat.

Action is the result of character A trying to get something from character B that character B doesn’t want to give up. It doesn’t have to be a big thing; it just has to be some thing. In order for there to be action there must be reaction. Agreement between characters is not action and won’t result in story – no matter how interesting the agreement might be.

*Point of View – the perspective from which the story is being revealed. Might be a character or a narrator. Might be 1st or 3rd person, close or omniscient, etc.