Fiction Scribe

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Thank you, dear readers, for your time and support.

To have this be the best writing site it can be, I want to cover all types of writing. However, I haven’t written or even tried writing every single type of writing. Other types and genres I have written, I still don’t feel confident enough to speak with authority on.

So, when in doubt, I like to bring you words of writers I admire.

I’ve been reading this woman’s poetry for a long time, and she is, by far, one of my favorite poets. It was only natural I thought of her when I wondered who I would interview about poetry. It’s my pleasure to bring you an interview with Jen Wills, one of the administrators of one of my favorite places to hang out - Literary Mary.

Warning: Some adult language

(more…)

Elizabeth Lyon: Tips and Techniques

This is an interesting little site I found with a list of fourteen questions about your novel. I think it’s a useful list to have at your side when you’re finishing up writing, even if I don’t quite qualify according to the test. If nothing else, they are things to think about when, like me, getting ready to submit your MS to publishers and/or agents.

I’ve just found a forum I absolutely adore.

Do you feel a bit uneasy about forums with thousands of members? Do you crave a more intimate setting to talk to other writers about your craft? Then this is the forum for you. They not only have sections for writing, but also sections for readers, bloggers, and people looking to buy/sell their stuff. On top of all that, you can post job offers for others or post your qualifications to get you a job.

Come join me at Writer’s Remember and share your writing experiences.

For all the lovers new and old and all the singles who can use this night to go out and party with other singles, have a happy and safe Valentine’s Day.

Dialogue punctuation. This is something that not so much annoys me but also tends to stick out more in your writing than a great, big red check mark across the page.

I think some writers get confused by the quotation marks. No worries. Just forget them. Use punctuation and capitalization like you usually would!

If the dialogue ends a sentence and a new sentence begins after, you punctuate the same, quotation marks or not.

With dialogue:

“I told you why!” Billie began twisting the ring on her finger. “I told you twice.”

Without dialogue:

She had told him why. She had told him twice, in fact.

If the dialogue doesn’t end the sentence - if you’re using dialogue tags - then you punctuate with a comma. This is the tricky one though, because even if you use an exclamation mark, question mark, or hyphen, you lowercase what is outside the quotation marks. (Unless it’s a proper name, but you know that.)

“What do you mean, twice?” he asked.

“I meant what I said!” she said, now pouting.

“But I-” he began.

“Twice,” she said. “Twice, twice, twice. How hard is that to understand?”

Of course, you should not be using so many dialogue tags, but now you understand why I’m saying. Don’t let the quotation marks screw you up too much. They are your friends.

For further reading on dialogue tags, try this.

I am proud to announce my friend WriterWoman is hosting a poetry blog carnival on her blog, Poets Who Blog.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with blog carnivals, it’s an opportunity to submit your work to a blog to see it posted up with other submissions from bloggers. Your blog URL is included with your submission, so all you have to do is follow the link and get to know new people.

Sounds good to me!

If you want more details, go to For Your Success or Poets Who Blog.

Enjoy!

March 2nd marks the birthday of the good Dr. Seuss, and here at the Books and Writing channel of 451press are celebrating with style.

Kelly over at Tiny Treasury is holding a contest for anyone who wants to say it like Suess.

The rules can be found here.

The prize? A Dr. Seuss book!

(My personal favorites are The Lorax and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)

Good luck!

Well, I’ve finally taken a step I’ve never taken before - I looked for publishers.

I’ve gone to the local library a few times and already had the Australian Writer’s Marketplace picked out. But whereas I’d only used it to look through the writing events and groups, I went straight for the Australian publishers’ section.

It took a couple dollars to copy all those pages, but it certainly was better than the AU$40+ that I would have paid for the entire book. I then sat down and went through all those publishers, crossing out and highlighting like I would in the classifieds section of a newspaper.

There’s something ultimately exhilarating about taking another step towards getting published. It’s part doing something for yourself in general, but it’s also part having enough pride in your work to take a step towards the often difficult publication market.

So, there’s another step towards trying for publication. Here’s to taking another.

Cheers.

“Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write my books so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she must turn one more page. When people tell me I’ve kept them up all night, I feel like I’ve succeeded!”
- Sidney Sheldon

“You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money’s in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.”
- Larry Niven

“Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.”
- Richard Curtis

“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.”
- Cormac McCarthy

“If you’re a singer, you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he’s good, the older he gets, the better he writes.”
- Mickey Spillane

“Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you — as if you haven’t been told a million times already — that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.”
- Harlan Ellison

“Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.”
- Tom Clancy

“There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder.”
- Brian Aldiss

“My goal in life is to be the exact same person to you, whether you’ve met me for the first time or the 21st time. Your knowledge of me is there from the beginning in an honest, brutal sort of way. Get your writings to be there…in an honest, brutal sort of way, and you’ll have found your true voice.”
- Joyce Jace

I say … and you think … ?

1. The best thing ::
2. Hold ::
3. Rapture ::
4. Cover ::
5. Restrictive ::
6. Baker ::
7. Author ::
8. Pill ::
9. Months ::
10. Valentine’s Day ::

A lot of writers use a lot of different things for inspiration. I’d like to try and find all those different types of inspiration and put them on this blog.

For this exercise, you’ll use visual stimulation for ideas.

Write about him and what he’s thinking. Let your mind go where it pleases.

I just wanted to put up a couple notes for everyone.

*If you didn’t know, you can click on any one of the categories to the right and get only posts in that category. If you’re in the mood for just exercises or have missed a round of Unconscious Mutterings, you don’t have to swim through all the posts.

*As you may have noticed, on the right and scroll down, there are boxes with all other blogs on this channel, the latest posts from the blogs on this channel, and all that’s hot off the presses for the whole network.

*One of my favorite sites, WordCountJournal, has been making a lot of improvements on their site. It’s never too late to start, and you get to set the starting date, so you can pretend you’ve been doing it since the beginning of this year if you want.

*RomanceWriter’s 101 Words is still going! Join in the fun and add a sentence of your own. See just what happens when a bunch of writers from around the world get together.

*Do you have a writing site of your own or a favorite writing site you can’t live without? Let me know, and I’ll check it out. Just click on the “contact me” under my profile paragraph.

*I’m planning on getting up a newsletter sometime soon here… Anyone interested?

No, I’m not talking about lack of inspiration; I’m talking about finding your form.

There are so many people I talk to who desperately want to write something. They don’t know what it is, but they know they have the desire to put pen to paper.

As with most things to do with writing, finding your ideal form is a labor of love. Many people who want to write but have yet to try it, look at friends who write and want to try writing that. Or, they read novels and think they should write novels.

That isn’t the case at all. I love reading flash fiction, but that doesn’t mean flash fiction is the best form for me. There isn’t a lot of poetry I actively follow, but I adore writing poetry.

This post was inspired by talking to a friend of a friend. He always wanted to write novels, but felt he lacked the creativity to write an entire novel. (It’s not at all a matter of a lack of creativity.) His specialty was more for shorter pieces.

I introduced him to flash fiction.

Finding your form isn’t just finding the type of writing that is best for you, though. It is also finding what works best to help get you writing. My friend had difficulties coming up with ideas for his writing.

I told him about exercises and prompts.

Flash fiction might not work for him, and/or writing exercises and prompt might not work for him. However, it is a start.

Part of the joy of writing is exploring, not just within yourself and the worlds you create but within the craft. Try writing something of another genre. If you’re a novelist, try writing a poem. It’s hard to leave your comfort zone, especially if you truly feel you have a good thing going, but what do you have to lose?

And look at all you might have to gain.

I had a request a while ago to do a post on dialogue tags. The writer who requested this writes poetry, and thus doesn’t have to deal with them very often.

In most cases, the thing about dialogue tags it the more a writer uses them the newer that person tends to be to writing. This isn’t a rule for everyone, but something I’ve noticed of writers on the forums I’m on.

Dialogue tags should only be used when necessary - when introducing a new character to the scene, when you have two or more members of the same sex talking and it will get confusing without them, and occasionally when you can pair it well with a character action.

There isn’t a lot in writing more annoying than:

“Jane,” Micheal began.

“But they could be here at any moment!” Jane exclaimed breathlessly.

First off, if she’s breathless, it’s doubtful she’s going to get that many words out without at least one pause in there. Second, the exclamation point at the end of what she said already tells me she exclaimed it. No need to tell me the same information twice; I’d like the story not to grind to a halt, if you don’t mind.

With that little piece, you can start by chopping off the names. We know who is talking by the first introductory lines. Try using your valuable writing space for body movements to convey how the characters feel. Also, the “soothingly” and breathlessly stuff can be knocked off.

You know the “show, don’t tell” phrase you hear all the time? It especially applies to dialogue tags.

What I don’t want to read:

“How could you?” he asked angrily.

What I want to read:

“How could you?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he continued to glare at her.

While narrowing of the eyes can also show suspicion, paired with the dialogue, it’s obvious he’s angry and only getting more so. With body language, you’ve shown me, not told me.

Nobody likes being told what to do or feel; they want to experience it for themselves. But before I stray into a post about showing and not telling, I’ll simply say, use your dialogue tags wisely. The first example would read much better like this:

“Jane…” Micheal began.

“But they could be here at any moment!” She bit her bottom lip, and tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at him.

No, it’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better. Double check your tags. Could they be changed for the better? Do you need some of them at all?

Cheers.