Uncovering Your Characters’ ‘Why’: The Heart of Fiction Writing

In the world of fiction writing, characters are the beating heart of your story. They are the ones who embark on daring adventures, face insurmountable odds, and grow through every triumph and defeat.…

What is a plot? Well, depending on what you are writing, it could be where you bury the body. All joking aside, it’s a sequence of events your protagonist and antagonist must go through to get a resolution at the end of the book. (Unless it’s a series, but it’s al…

Posted on 11-15-23

Let’s talk about it!

Dialogue is important on so many levels inside your manuscript. It helps describe who your characters are. Are they serious? Fun loving? Angry? How do they react to different stimuli or situations you throw them into?

Dial…

Posted on 10-31-23

So in a last post I spoke about writing, I mentioned when first getting started with your ideas, however you think it or say it, is how you should write it.

Until you learn what kind of routine, you have in your daily writing, until you learn h…

Posted on 10-15-23

My Tips for writing, whether you are new or seasoned:

Love yourself.

Just write it. Whatever is in your head, how you think it or speak it, just write it!

Don’t get bogged down by the ‘rules’ of writing. (Editing comes after the first draft).

Posted on 9-30-23

My word, a grammar mistake.

Well, it wasn’t my spelling mistake in the beginning. My first book, Katie’s Kottage, was published through another company. I paid (I know, lesson learned) and with the package, I received a professional blurb for th…

Posted on 9-15-23

As well (as), Also, and Too

Using As Well, Also, and Too; means to give more information about something.

‘As well’ is not a synonym for ‘and.’ If you can use ‘and’ in your sentence, do it.

‘As well as’ – does not make subjects plural. The verb…

Posted on 8-31-23

One or two words?

Have you ever written a word that you know, and then someone mentions how you may have misspelled it?

Have you ever gotten stuck on whether a word is one or two words?

Even those words you know are correct and then you come acro…

Posted on 8-15-23

Editing Explanations

Many writers/authors are not happy with their editors or have felt as though they were taken in by less-than-stellar editors.

This saddens me as an editor because, as a writer, you’ve worked hard on your story and deserve t…

Posted on 7-31-23

Show and Tell

And I’m not talking about standing in front of your schoolmates.

No, this is much worse better because you are a writer!

Adjectives and Adverbs – these are words I love.

I use adjectives and adverbs and sprinkle them liberally wh…

Posted on 7-15-23

Redundancy!

Repetition, unnecessary, needless, unneeded, superfluous, extraneous, unimportant, avoidable, extrinsic, nonessential, surplus, not required.

Saying the same thing twice with different words.

Guilty!

Not only have I been guilty of …

Posted on 6-30-23

Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories – George R. R. Martin.

The moment I read this; a lightbulb went off in my head.

These simple sentences changed everything in how I viewed my characters and changed …

Posted on 6-15-23

Illusion

1. a. A misleading image presented to the vision: optical illusion.

b. Something that deceives or misleads intellectually.

c. Perception of something objectively existing in such a way to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature.

“I…

Posted on 5-31-23

FIGHT!

How to write a great fight scene?

Start with the bare bones, and it won’t look pretty—at first.

To start a fight scene, think about the reason for the scene. What is the final achievement of this scene? What makes this character want to…

Posted on 5-15-23

Writing Habits

What are your writing habits?

Do you write in the morning, mid-day, afternoon, evening?

Maybe by now, you noticed a theme on my website. “Write On!”

I adopted this because I was setting limits on myself. I would sit at my comput…

Posted on 4-30-23

Backstory Continued

So earlier we read about backstories and how they can appear in a story. Now, let’s talk about how they can work.

What does your reader need to know and why and when do they need to know it?

Incorporating backstories should …

Posted on 4-15-23

Backstory

Are you using a backstory in your current WIP?

Backstories can add to the story you are writing. But how do you balance it so it’s not an info-dump, and isn’t too vague?

First, let’s look at the common types:

Front(loaded), Flashback…

Posted on 3-31-23

Analogy

a: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect.

b: resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : SIMILARITY.

: inference that if two or more things agree with one another i…

Posted on 3-15-23

Allusion

Allusion:

1. An implied or indirect reference, especially in literature

2. The act of making an indirect reference to something: the act of alluding to something.

“Allusion Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https:…

Posted on 2-28-23

A little, A bit

Oof! I am guilty of this. If I were to ever show my first draft and even up until I do a major edit… to say I’ve used a little, a bit, too much, is an understatement.

What do we mean by a ‘A little,’ ‘A bit?’

“I poured a little…

Posted on 2-15-23

Don’t stress!

Mistakes happen—forever immortalized in a published work. Yes, others will catch it, maybe even point it out.

I spelled Morocco wrong in my first book, Katie’s Kottage. I should never have misspelled a country wrong. I had it as,…

Posted on 1-31-23

Some Continued:

Some, sometimes, someone, something, etc.

In the earlier post about ‘some,’ we spoke about it being a filler word for something already known. If this is the case, then describe it. Take the ‘some’ out.

And we learned ‘some’ is …

Posted on 1-16-23

Some, sometimes, someone, something, etc.

Oh, how I love these words! Let me count the ways… 769 times in 60k words. Yikes! We tend to use some, or the variant of it, when we can’t think of what else to put (at the time).

Some is an unspecified…

Posted on 12-15-22

That is continued

So, in the 12-2-22 post it was mentioned how ‘that’ is overused to the point of being read without thought. We also say this word without thought.

Have you looked through your work to see how many times ‘that’ slipped in?

W…

Posted on December 1, 2022

That isn’t a bad word.

Let’s talk about ‘that.’ It is one of the words that is used the most in writing. We tend to use ‘that’ without thinking. It is such a common word that it gets overlooked and read without further thought. 

‘That…

Posted on November 16th, 2022.

Writing a fictional story is an adventurous undertaking that allows your imagination to run wild as you create characters and build worlds. While there is no definitive list of rules you should follow for fiction writing, there are …

Posted on November 16th, 2022.

Hello, there! And thank you for visiting my new blog!

Here at Write On Proof and Edit, I believe in providing my customers with only the best writing services and fiction books. In order to help even more people, I thought I’d shar…