Enjoyed reading Pat Newcombe’s blog post on villains in her Thriller Writers Blog. I am sure you will too, especially if you like the suspense/mystery/thriller genre. This set me thinking on what I would like to see and not see in a villain!
Tag: Writing Style
Books are not just about action- not even thrillers. As I write my second book “Lucky For Some, Thirteen” I am conscious of the fact that dialogues enhance the quality of your writing or bring it down. They are sometimes taken for granted. We write them any old way believing the strength of our plot will make the book sail through. This is a huge mistake.
No, not breaking out of a habit as in wanting to quit smoking or give up on excessively fatty, but wonderfully yummy, food! I thought I would share today some ideas on getting out of habits that diminish the power of your writing.
In a sense I guess a book is never fully complete. I say so because the scope for improving your writing is boundless. Yet, we need to stop somewhere as there is no limit to the extent of editing that you can do. My second book is getting ready. Yes, “Lucky For Some, Thirteen” is now almost complete. I would like to share some learnings today. Continue reading “Learnings As A Writer”
I had an interesting experience in this year’s NaNoWriMo. As you know, the objective is to write 50,000 words of a novel in the calendar month of November each year. I was doing NaNo for the second time this year and decided to incorporate a few of my learnings from last year.
Guess what? I haven’t looked at my NaNo 2010 effort since I finished the required 50,000 words to qualify as having completed NaNo successfully. I find that editing and polishing your writing take much more time and effort than writing the first draft. I am sure this must be your experience too. As I have learnt over the short time, I have started writing in earnest ” Write In A Rush, Edit At Leisure”.
Take pleasure in pointing you to some good tips on improving your writing . Today’s comes from Janice Hardy’s blog The Other Side of the Story. She writes of a tendency to repeat ourselves. I must say that, although inadvertently I am sure, we often underestimate the intelligence of our readers by stressing the obvious.
I have written elsewhere about NaNoWriMo– the National Novel Writing Month- a competition in which you aim to write a novel of at least 50,000 words during the calendar month of November. I took part for the first time last year. By end November 2009, I achieved the objective and had hammered out a novel of 50,127 words. I called it “It Can’t Be You”. Continue reading “My First Novel”
To be honest, I didn’t quite realize the significance of the first few lines of the story until I became serious about learning to write. To justify my point, let me ask you something. You have read hundreds of books. How many first lines do you remember? Probably none, might be an honest answer. However, if you think about it deeply, if you are in the business of writing
Most of us are creatures of habit. We do some things and keep doing them purely, as they say, out of habit. Unfortunately, there are good as well as bad habits! When it comes to writing, do you have a pet peeve or a habit you are conscious of ? Continue reading “Writing to Inspire”
Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller 