How To Instantly Improve Your Writing — Three Quick Tips

laptop sweater

LOL. Yeah, that’s one very creative knitter. 🙂

Hey everyone,

I can’t think of anything better than the following three quick tips which I’m never without as I write. At times it’s about heading back to the basics, and making sure the foundation of our work is steady and good. So, get ready. Here are three precious little gems to instantly improve your writing.

  • SENTENCE LENGTH

Oh yeah. When writing we can get so carried away with getting our words out, that our sentence length drags. My favorite thing, is to read my sentences out loud, particularly when a paragraph doesn’t look quite right. Try it. If you do, you’ll soon find yourself chopping long sentences right down.

There are so many benefits to this. Did you realize shorter sentences ensure the pace of your book picks up?  Were you aware your reader becomes more heavily engaged when that occurs? It makes total sense, right? Shorter sentences allow for a quicker pace, and as a writer that’s one of our goals, to ensure our reader keeps turning those pages.

  • TELLING AS COMPARED TO SHOWING

This can be an issue, and one we’re not even aware of. What to learn is, don’t tell your reader what your character is thinking, but show them with physical reactions. Even add more dialogue if necessary to accomplish this.

Here’s a short but sweet example of moving a sentence from telling to showing. To set the scene, the hero has lost consciousness after a hit to the head. He now awakens.

  • TELLING:
  • “I’ve been out for twenty minutes?” Confusion took him.
  • SHOWING:
  • “I’ve been out for twenty minutes?” He scrubbed a hand over his head, wincing as he struck a lump. “Did someone hit me?”

Switching to showing is about finding those words of emotion, and as you see above with the word “confusion,” nipping it out and showing with something else.

  • OVERUSE OF ADVERBS AND ADJECTIVES

Never forget you want your reader to be immersed in your story. You don’t want them thinking too hard by the “overuse” of adverbs and adjectives. What do I mean by this? Here’s another sweet little example.

  •  OVERUSE. Can you spot the “unnecessary” adverb or adjective in the following sentence?
  • Jack stepped away, quietly propping his back against the wide trunk of the tree.
  • If you got the word “quietly,” you’re so right. It should read–
  • Jack stepped away, propping his back against the wide trunk of the tree.

Keep an eye out for any “overuse” of adverbs. In the example I’ve used, Jack is quietly propping his back against the tree. How else does one prop themselves against a tree except quietly? “Propping” is a casual, restful motion, so in this case the adverb “quietly” is clearly not needed when “propping” explains it all. Don’t get me wrong though, adverbs definitely have a place where it’s necessary. Just remove those ones you don’t need so your sentences can free up and flow smoother.

Now for a bonus. I’m going to share with you a new excerpt from PROTECTOR, my young adult/fantasy/romance. Check out the scene below. It’s all about showing and not telling. To set the scene, my hero is in the heroine’s bedroom, and her best friend comes charging in. All completely innocent of course. 🙂

The door flew open and slammed against the wall. Yeah, that was Silvie, all right.

“Ten minutes is enough you two. Now break it up,” she admonished as she stormed toward the bed, red-gold curls flying about her face. “Let’s remember we still have a villain to unearth and apprehend.” She turned, giving Davio a fierce glower. “What do you think you’re doing on my best friend’s bed? Get off. Off. Off. Off.”

“Yes.” He pushed himself to his feet and pulled me up to stand beside him. “Except, in the future, Silvie Carver, you will remember not to storm into the room the way you just did and disturb us. Correct protocol is that you knock and wait before addressing a prince.”

Silvie didn’t seem to care as she reached past him and gripped my wrist. She scowled at him and tugged me toward her like a mother bear protecting her cub. “Well, lucky for me, Davio Thy-prince Loveria, I do not have to observe your correct protocol. We are on Earth, you see, not Peacio.”

Hmm, and all this from the girl who’d told me just days ago that I needed to get laid.

I almost smiled.

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I hope you enjoyed that peekaboo excerpt, and if you still want more, then just below are the links to grab your copy of Protector. 🙂 So, what did you think of these three quick tips? Leave me a comment and let me know. I love hearing from you.

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PROTECTOR–BUY THE BOOK: Amazon Kindle / B&N Nook / iTunes / Lyrical Press / Kobo.

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For Those Writers After DEEP POV — Tips For You

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Random Picture Alert! I simply couldn’t find any image on Deep POV. Hope you enjoy this one.

Before I jump into covering the header’s topic, stay tuned, for at the end of this post, I’ll be announcing the winner of last week’s critique offer. I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented and “liked” last week’s post. I was blown away by your kind wishes and congratulations–they truly meant the world to me. 🙂

Okay, now to this week’s post– For Those Writers After DEEP POV — Tips For You.

As writers we all know which POV we like to write in. Often our POV also depends on our story’s genre or how it needs to be told. I love writing in 1st Person as much as I love writing in 3rd Person, but, what about DEEP POV? Where does DEEP POV fit into a writer’s world? And for some of you, you may even be asking what the heck is DEEP POV?

Ah-huh, let me catch you up on this, because writing in DEEP isn’t anything new, but so often today, publishers are asking us to take our POV, whether 1st or 3rd, and Deepen it. If you want to know more about DEEP POV because you’d like to try it, then here are loads of tips to help get you there.

We’ll begin with the five senses of:

  • Sight
  • Sound
  • Smell
  • Taste
  • Touch

When going DEEP:

  • The author must describe all scenes from what the character can perceive with their own senses.
  • There is no remoteness, and even the character’s internal thoughts and feelings form part of the writing.
  • Certain distancing words are removed. Examples of these are words like:
    • Watched
    • Noticed
    • Heard
    • Felt
    • Saw
    • Wondered
    • Decided
    • Knew
    • Thought, etc.

You’ll need to do a search and find these if you want to go DEEP, ensuring you rewrite the sentences to take them out. I’ll give you an example, from the heroine’s POV, and I’ll remove the underlined distancing words in the second bulleted point.

  • She felt her heart beat faster as she watched him lift the gun. He won’t kill her, she thought.
  • Her heart raced as he lifted the gun. He wouldn’t kill her.  (In DEEP)

Did you like that Deeper sentence?

  • Now let’s cover emotion, for in DEEP we take out words like:
    • Anger
    • Sad
    • Fear
    • Happy
    • Shock
    • Bothered, etc

There are a ton of these. Instead we use body language (wherever we can) to convey emotion–and this is truly important. I’ll give you an example, from the heroine’s POV, and I’ll remove the underlined words of emotion in the second bulleted point.

  • Anger lanced through her. She was not happy to have her choices taken away.
  • She raised her chin and stared him down. He would not take her choices away.    (IN DEEP)

As you can see, these small changes Deepen the POV, and prevent the reader from being pulled out of the head of the person whose POV they’re in.

  • And lastly, don’t forget that characters rarely refer to themselves by name. When you go DEEP, ask yourself would the character use her name, over and over? If not use her/she, but only if the dialogue is strong and the reader can see who speaks.

–0o0–

Okay, it’s time to get down to the serious business of the offer I made last week. For those who left a comment asking for a critique, they had their name put into a hat. What could they win? Yours truly will be their second set of eyes to go over the first four pages (or 1500 words thereabouts) of their novel. That’s the first four pages. Not four pages from the middle of the book, but the first four pages. Right, so for this fabulous critique, the winner is:

*** Kozo ***

Hey, congratulations, Kozo. Please email me the first four pages of your novel as a word document attachment so I can insert “review bubbles” for personalized editing advice. My email address is located under the “Contact tab” on my website, or of course it’s joannewadsworth007@gmail.com

I’ll be making this offer again in the near future as I had a great response–and I’m all for authors supporting authors. You guys rock with the way you support me on my website. I’m feeling the love all the way to where I am Down Under.

Have a wonderful week. Catch ya all later.

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PROTECTOR–BUY THE BOOK: Amazon Kindle / B&N Nook / iTunes / Lyrical Press / Kobo.

Flower-Art-Pistil-Pink-1-1920x1200 - Thank You2