Kristy McCaffrey's Blog: Author Kristy McCaffrey - Posts Tagged "writing-tips"
Writing With Quiet Hands
By Kristy McCaffrey
It’s that time of year when writers often decide to sharpen their skills, test the boundaries of their abilities, and become better at their chosen craft. I recently had the pleasure of reading Writing With Quiet Hands: How To Shape Your Writing To Resonate With Readers by author and literary agent Paula Munier (Writer’s Digest Books, 2015), and I couldn’t resist sharing some of the gems within.
If you’re an accomplished craftsman, the idea of quiet hands might be familiar. Quiet hands are confident and sure. In writing, inspiration is often considered the most necessary ingredient but without a mastery of craft even the most galvanized idea will fall flat.
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” ~ Stephen King
* * * *
What are the tools of craft in writing? Voice, tone and style.
Munier says, “With your voice, you express your truth as a storyteller. With your tone, you communicate the emotion, atmosphere, and mood of your story. With your style, you articulate your story and give form to that expression.”
* * * *
A Word On Structure
The right structure for a story is critical to its success. Choosing the right place—the setting—can make a story shine, or fall flat. Basically, there’s a beginning, middle and end (the classic three-act structure). Whether you’re a plotter or a fly-by-your-pants writer, Munier advises not to overthink this formula. Other considerations: where to enter the story and where to exit it. Setting a time parameter can help a writer focus on the necessary events needed to unfold the story. Generally speaking, the shorter the time frame, the better. The best advice Munier has on structure is to “know your genre.”
“The debut writers in your genre are the writers you are competing against. The Sue Graftons and Stephen Kings and J.K. Rowlings of the world broke out and found their audiences years ago in a marketplace far different than the one all wannabe best-selling authors face today. They’re not your competition; they’re way beyond that.”
* * * *
While a common complaint from editors is a lack of connection with the main character, Munier says the reason she most often stops reading a story is a lack of narrative thrust. Scenes must build, characters must be complex, and everything must lead toward a climax. So, make things happen. In many stories, not enough transpires. Have your protagonist drive this action. Raise the stakes, with bigger and bigger obstacles. Add a deadline to enhance the urgency. Don’t overdo descriptions, but also don’t overdo dialogue. Above all, strive for clarity. Bottom line—pacing is crucial.
But she also stresses the importance of not pulling back on a first draft. Her advice is to write whatever works and let it take as long as it takes.
The second draft, however, is a different beast. Munier describes it as a “...supercharged developmental edit...” It’s here that you identify themes and weave them into the story, look at the imagery and symbology of the work, and milk the drama.
Many beginning writers tend to write in chunks—a chunk of description, then a chunk of backstory, then a chunk of dialogue. Instead, Munier suggests that each scene be a “tapestry of character, dialogue, action, backstory, inner monologue, and setting...”
Embrace revision and acquire editing skills. At the very least, learn to copyedit your own work (spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, typos, redundancies, inconsistencies, awkward sentences, etc.). You may pay for copyediting or developmental editing, but as a professional you should learn as much as you can and apply to your own work before sending it to others.
Things to address in revision:
Character Names—keep them simple and make sure the reader isn’t confused by similar names
Don’t write in dialect—ever
Tone Down The Hyperbole—don’t write melodrama
Watch Dialogue Tags—stick to ‘said’
Lose The Clichés
Swap Weak Verbs For Strong Ones—weak verbs include all forms of “to be”
Lose The Adverbs—let the verb do all the work
Use All The Senses
And finally, develop good writing habits: write every day, have a quiet work space, live a healthy lifestyle. Habit is more dependable than inspiration.
“Writing is nothing less than a path to enlightenment. The best writers are the writers whose work is enlightened by experience and polished by craftsmanship. These are the writers who write with quiet hands.” ~ Paula Munier
It’s that time of year when writers often decide to sharpen their skills, test the boundaries of their abilities, and become better at their chosen craft. I recently had the pleasure of reading Writing With Quiet Hands: How To Shape Your Writing To Resonate With Readers by author and literary agent Paula Munier (Writer’s Digest Books, 2015), and I couldn’t resist sharing some of the gems within.
If you’re an accomplished craftsman, the idea of quiet hands might be familiar. Quiet hands are confident and sure. In writing, inspiration is often considered the most necessary ingredient but without a mastery of craft even the most galvanized idea will fall flat.
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” ~ Stephen King
* * * *
What are the tools of craft in writing? Voice, tone and style.
Munier says, “With your voice, you express your truth as a storyteller. With your tone, you communicate the emotion, atmosphere, and mood of your story. With your style, you articulate your story and give form to that expression.”
* * * *
A Word On Structure
The right structure for a story is critical to its success. Choosing the right place—the setting—can make a story shine, or fall flat. Basically, there’s a beginning, middle and end (the classic three-act structure). Whether you’re a plotter or a fly-by-your-pants writer, Munier advises not to overthink this formula. Other considerations: where to enter the story and where to exit it. Setting a time parameter can help a writer focus on the necessary events needed to unfold the story. Generally speaking, the shorter the time frame, the better. The best advice Munier has on structure is to “know your genre.”
“The debut writers in your genre are the writers you are competing against. The Sue Graftons and Stephen Kings and J.K. Rowlings of the world broke out and found their audiences years ago in a marketplace far different than the one all wannabe best-selling authors face today. They’re not your competition; they’re way beyond that.”
* * * *
While a common complaint from editors is a lack of connection with the main character, Munier says the reason she most often stops reading a story is a lack of narrative thrust. Scenes must build, characters must be complex, and everything must lead toward a climax. So, make things happen. In many stories, not enough transpires. Have your protagonist drive this action. Raise the stakes, with bigger and bigger obstacles. Add a deadline to enhance the urgency. Don’t overdo descriptions, but also don’t overdo dialogue. Above all, strive for clarity. Bottom line—pacing is crucial.
But she also stresses the importance of not pulling back on a first draft. Her advice is to write whatever works and let it take as long as it takes.
The second draft, however, is a different beast. Munier describes it as a “...supercharged developmental edit...” It’s here that you identify themes and weave them into the story, look at the imagery and symbology of the work, and milk the drama.
Many beginning writers tend to write in chunks—a chunk of description, then a chunk of backstory, then a chunk of dialogue. Instead, Munier suggests that each scene be a “tapestry of character, dialogue, action, backstory, inner monologue, and setting...”
Embrace revision and acquire editing skills. At the very least, learn to copyedit your own work (spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, typos, redundancies, inconsistencies, awkward sentences, etc.). You may pay for copyediting or developmental editing, but as a professional you should learn as much as you can and apply to your own work before sending it to others.
Things to address in revision:
Character Names—keep them simple and make sure the reader isn’t confused by similar names
Don’t write in dialect—ever
Tone Down The Hyperbole—don’t write melodrama
Watch Dialogue Tags—stick to ‘said’
Lose The Clichés
Swap Weak Verbs For Strong Ones—weak verbs include all forms of “to be”
Lose The Adverbs—let the verb do all the work
Use All The Senses
And finally, develop good writing habits: write every day, have a quiet work space, live a healthy lifestyle. Habit is more dependable than inspiration.
“Writing is nothing less than a path to enlightenment. The best writers are the writers whose work is enlightened by experience and polished by craftsmanship. These are the writers who write with quiet hands.” ~ Paula Munier
Writing Tips
By Kristy McCaffrey
As a writer, I always appreciate advice from other authors. But when I’m asked for my own writing tips, I glance over my shoulder, because surely there’s a famous author standing behind me. Still, there are a few bits of advice I can offer.
Surround yourself with people better than you.
This is how you’ll improve. And you can always improve.
Network
Friends make the world a sweeter place. Friends can give you endless ideas about how to move forward in your career. And, finally, to get support, you must give support. Read your friend’s books. You’ll learn much.
Trust your instincts and intuition.
Follow your creative impulses—they’ll always be right and true. But be more business-like and discerning during the editing process and the subsequent marketing of a book. Don’t crumble at the first sign of criticism.
Learn the craft.
This will be an ongoing process that never ends. You’ll make mistakes. Learn from them and move on.
The 80% Rule
If a story is 80% good enough, I send it off to the editor. With good editing, I strive to bring it up to 95%. It’s impossible to reach perfection, so stop tweaking and release your creation to the world.
Be authentic.
As an author, as a writer, and as a person. You are your writing. At the same time, your job is to be as invisible as possible within the work itself. Dig into your characters and plot. Embrace research.
Follow your own path.
Your journey won’t look like anyone else’s, so don’t compare yourself to another author.
Have fun.
If playing with words and stories wasn’t buried deep in your bones, you wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. There are no limitations, really, so don’t place any on yourself.
Be humble. Be curious. Be grateful.
Connect with Kristy
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Blog ~ Pathways
Newsletter
As a writer, I always appreciate advice from other authors. But when I’m asked for my own writing tips, I glance over my shoulder, because surely there’s a famous author standing behind me. Still, there are a few bits of advice I can offer.
Surround yourself with people better than you.
This is how you’ll improve. And you can always improve.
Network
Friends make the world a sweeter place. Friends can give you endless ideas about how to move forward in your career. And, finally, to get support, you must give support. Read your friend’s books. You’ll learn much.
Trust your instincts and intuition.
Follow your creative impulses—they’ll always be right and true. But be more business-like and discerning during the editing process and the subsequent marketing of a book. Don’t crumble at the first sign of criticism.
Learn the craft.
This will be an ongoing process that never ends. You’ll make mistakes. Learn from them and move on.
The 80% Rule
If a story is 80% good enough, I send it off to the editor. With good editing, I strive to bring it up to 95%. It’s impossible to reach perfection, so stop tweaking and release your creation to the world.
Be authentic.
As an author, as a writer, and as a person. You are your writing. At the same time, your job is to be as invisible as possible within the work itself. Dig into your characters and plot. Embrace research.
Follow your own path.
Your journey won’t look like anyone else’s, so don’t compare yourself to another author.
Have fun.
If playing with words and stories wasn’t buried deep in your bones, you wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. There are no limitations, really, so don’t place any on yourself.
Be humble. Be curious. Be grateful.
Connect with Kristy
Website
Blog ~ Pathways
Newsletter
Write A Novel In A Month
By Kristy McCaffrey
If you’ve been on Facebook or Twitter, then you might have seen posts about National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. During the month of November writers from around the world collectively put their butts in the chair and pound out a novel. There’s a website where you can register your project, track your daily word count, and interact with your friends and colleagues who are also participating. To win NaNo, you must write 50,000 words by November 30. If you’re a writer, you know how tough this can be. And if you’re a reader, you might wonder what all the fuss is about.
I’ve successfully completed two previous NaNo’s—the first was for my western romance THE BLACKBIRD (2014), and the second was my romantic suspense novel about great white sharks titled DEEP BLUE (2016).
How does NaNo benefit a writer? It forces the internal editor to take a vacation. Believe me, this is far harder than it sounds, and is probably the biggest battleground an author will face in trying to complete NaNo. The internal editor not only encompasses good sentence structure and proper grammar, he/she also wants fully-fleshed characters right out of the gate, will insist on researching the name of the road in that western town in 1877 before allowing any more forward movement in the story, and wants to investigate every Irish surname for a secondary character who only appears in one scene. The internal editor can be the harshest of critics, and many a writer has succumbed to crippling self-doubt as a result.
But if an author has already published several novels, he/she must have found a way to work with this ridiculously overbearing boss, right? Excuse me while I laugh hysterically. Okay, I’m back. The short answer is, no. But all is not lost, and that’s where NaNo helps writers to shine. It forces us to push past the persnickety side-commentator and get the story down. NaNo is all about the first draft—those random and sometimes illogical beginnings of our stories. As a reader, all you’ve ever seen is the spiffed up final version of a project, so it’s hard to understand that it didn’t always look that way. Most first drafts would shock the spit right out of you. Just kidding. They’re not that horrifying, but they can be quite the hot mess.
To write 50,000 words in one month (and November only has 30 days), a writer must punch out 1,667 words per day. I usually round up to 2,000, because life doesn’t stop for me to write, so there will be days when I don’t hit that goal. Since my novels tend to be 75-85K in length, writing 50K won’t be the entire book. This leads to the most important advice I can offer about NaNo—make sure you get to THE END. This means that some scenes will be skipped, heavy description and backstory will be lightly touched upon, and character development will be invariably sketchy. But this is a good thing. Getting to the end offers insights that can’t be found any other way, and it will make the first revision pass much more fruitful.
One quirk I’ve learned during NaNo is that my scenes end up out of order. Since I know this about myself, I don’t spend too much time in my transitions from one incident to the next, because I’ll likely be moving them around later. I simply try to find the interior energy of a scene and expound on that as best I can. Then I move on. You can’t dilly-dally during NaNo.
And while it’s true I’ll be forced to discard large chunks of my preciously speed-written prose during the refining stages of the manuscript, it’s never wasted. I almost always learn something from the misstep, either about my characters or a plot direction that wasn’t going to work. I’ve also had delightful surprises. I didn’t find the great white shark star of my suspense book until the very end of the first draft. Her name was Bonnie, and when she arrived she changed the whole tone of the story. That’s why it’s important to get to the end. Once I knew about her, it was clear how I needed to lay the groundwork for her presence earlier in the book, and it completely informed the direction of my revisions.
This year, I’m unofficially participating and I won’t lie, it’s stressful. Some days I just can’t figure out what should happen next, and my mind’s innate tendency to wander off—online Christmas shopping! Let’s do that!—must be held in rigorous check. The manuscript (ANCIENT WINDS, the third book in my suspense series) is unfolding in a choppy and somewhat haphazard way, and it’s downright maddening. But … I’m finding those little gems along the way. (I have a fabulous scene in the Amazonian jungle with my hero and heroine and an anaconda that quite surprised me.) And this is because NaNo doesn’t let up; it forces you to write something. Anything. It inspires innovation.
So, if you’re a writer and haven’t given NaNo a try, consider it. You might astonish yourself. And if you’re a reader, have sympathy for those participating. We won’t be grumpy lunatics for long.
Connect with Kristy
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Blog ~ Pathways
Newsletter
If you’ve been on Facebook or Twitter, then you might have seen posts about National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. During the month of November writers from around the world collectively put their butts in the chair and pound out a novel. There’s a website where you can register your project, track your daily word count, and interact with your friends and colleagues who are also participating. To win NaNo, you must write 50,000 words by November 30. If you’re a writer, you know how tough this can be. And if you’re a reader, you might wonder what all the fuss is about.
I’ve successfully completed two previous NaNo’s—the first was for my western romance THE BLACKBIRD (2014), and the second was my romantic suspense novel about great white sharks titled DEEP BLUE (2016).
How does NaNo benefit a writer? It forces the internal editor to take a vacation. Believe me, this is far harder than it sounds, and is probably the biggest battleground an author will face in trying to complete NaNo. The internal editor not only encompasses good sentence structure and proper grammar, he/she also wants fully-fleshed characters right out of the gate, will insist on researching the name of the road in that western town in 1877 before allowing any more forward movement in the story, and wants to investigate every Irish surname for a secondary character who only appears in one scene. The internal editor can be the harshest of critics, and many a writer has succumbed to crippling self-doubt as a result.
But if an author has already published several novels, he/she must have found a way to work with this ridiculously overbearing boss, right? Excuse me while I laugh hysterically. Okay, I’m back. The short answer is, no. But all is not lost, and that’s where NaNo helps writers to shine. It forces us to push past the persnickety side-commentator and get the story down. NaNo is all about the first draft—those random and sometimes illogical beginnings of our stories. As a reader, all you’ve ever seen is the spiffed up final version of a project, so it’s hard to understand that it didn’t always look that way. Most first drafts would shock the spit right out of you. Just kidding. They’re not that horrifying, but they can be quite the hot mess.
To write 50,000 words in one month (and November only has 30 days), a writer must punch out 1,667 words per day. I usually round up to 2,000, because life doesn’t stop for me to write, so there will be days when I don’t hit that goal. Since my novels tend to be 75-85K in length, writing 50K won’t be the entire book. This leads to the most important advice I can offer about NaNo—make sure you get to THE END. This means that some scenes will be skipped, heavy description and backstory will be lightly touched upon, and character development will be invariably sketchy. But this is a good thing. Getting to the end offers insights that can’t be found any other way, and it will make the first revision pass much more fruitful.
One quirk I’ve learned during NaNo is that my scenes end up out of order. Since I know this about myself, I don’t spend too much time in my transitions from one incident to the next, because I’ll likely be moving them around later. I simply try to find the interior energy of a scene and expound on that as best I can. Then I move on. You can’t dilly-dally during NaNo.
And while it’s true I’ll be forced to discard large chunks of my preciously speed-written prose during the refining stages of the manuscript, it’s never wasted. I almost always learn something from the misstep, either about my characters or a plot direction that wasn’t going to work. I’ve also had delightful surprises. I didn’t find the great white shark star of my suspense book until the very end of the first draft. Her name was Bonnie, and when she arrived she changed the whole tone of the story. That’s why it’s important to get to the end. Once I knew about her, it was clear how I needed to lay the groundwork for her presence earlier in the book, and it completely informed the direction of my revisions.
This year, I’m unofficially participating and I won’t lie, it’s stressful. Some days I just can’t figure out what should happen next, and my mind’s innate tendency to wander off—online Christmas shopping! Let’s do that!—must be held in rigorous check. The manuscript (ANCIENT WINDS, the third book in my suspense series) is unfolding in a choppy and somewhat haphazard way, and it’s downright maddening. But … I’m finding those little gems along the way. (I have a fabulous scene in the Amazonian jungle with my hero and heroine and an anaconda that quite surprised me.) And this is because NaNo doesn’t let up; it forces you to write something. Anything. It inspires innovation.
So, if you’re a writer and haven’t given NaNo a try, consider it. You might astonish yourself. And if you’re a reader, have sympathy for those participating. We won’t be grumpy lunatics for long.
Connect with Kristy
Website
Blog ~ Pathways
Newsletter
Author Kristy McCaffrey
Kristy McCaffrey writes western historical and contemporary romances. She and her husband live in Arizona with their two dogs. Visit her online at kristymccaffrey.com.
- Kristy McCaffrey's profile
- 518 followers
