writing technique

Pull a Character and Plot from Your Idea

Brainstorming is an important step when developing your story idea. Once you have an general idea that feels right, use brainstorming again to start building your characters and plot.

Perfect Your Pacing

As you’re building your plot or moving bits of information around in a nonfiction book, here are some tips to keep your readers glued to the page.

Use Pacing to Your Advantage

Books that have a very even tone start to finish tend to lull the reader

How (and Why) to Eliminate Passive Writing

According to Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, “The habitual use of the active voice…makes for forcible writing.” In its most basic sense, the active voice involves the subject of the sentence being the doer of the action, whereas in the passive voice the subject is being acted

6 Ways to Simplify Your Writing

A former workshop student of mine recently thanked me for reminding her that query letters are best when they’re short and to the point. A published writer, she said she’d gotten away from the KISS method of querying (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

The more I thought about her acronym, the

Prologues, Epilogues, and Other Useful Bookends

What if the reader needs more information than what you can squeeze into the body of your book? You have several elements at your disposal that can lead the reader into your work and ease them through the ending. But to use them, you have to understand each element’s distinct

5 Ways to “Teach, Don’t Preach”

In my writeforkids video “Show, Don’t Preach”, I examined five books that teach the readers life lessons without being didactic. Here, now, in this bonus article exclusively for Fightin’ Bookworms, are five ways you can incorporate these techniques into your own writing.

Show, Don’t Tell. This

Show a Character’s Emotion Using Body Language

Emotion is integral to character. We reveal emotion through dialogue, through action, through narrative, though we try to avoid telling the reader what the character is feeling. (Remember: show; don't tell.)

If this is all that we are using, though, we are missing a prime way to show emotion:

FAQ: Creating a Memorable Title for Your Book

What makes for a great title? How do we come up with evocative titles? What role do publishers and editors play in title selection? Should you hold out for your original title, even in the face of editorial requests that you change it? What if you are doing a trilogy or series of books, how will that influence your titles? Can titles be copyrighted?

Video Quickie: How to See the World Through the Eyes of a Writer

Jon's here with some tips on how to view the world in a way that will make you a better and more successful writer.

PODCAST – Follow This Fightin’ Bookworm to Grammar Perfection!

You’ve got a thrilling plot, quirky characters and riveting dialogue. Will anyone care or even notice if your participles dangle or if you’re stumped by which pronoun to use?

Actually, yes.

Editors are looking for reasons to whittle down their slush pile, and if your manuscript shouts “bad grammar” from

Five Tips for Getting Feedback on Your First Draft

You’ve finished the first draft of your novel. Congratulations! Completing that all-important first draft is truly an accomplishment. But at the same time, it’s only the beginning, because taking a manuscript from good to great requires countless hours of revision. But before you dive in, you need some honest, objective

Crafting the Female Protagonist

Bart Heird via Compfight

Those of us of a certain age cut our reading teeth on Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls, and other books starring teenage heroines. They were great. I wanted to be just like Nancy. I wanted to solve mysteries with her. Mostly, I wanted to look

Here’s What’s (Probably) Wrong With Your Story…

I've critiqued nearly 2500 manuscripts in the last 20 years, and I've seen the following patterns in my comments to writers and in the rejection letters they've gotten from editors:

The story is too slight: This most often applies to picture books. What it means is that the story doesn't

Exercise: Weaving a Story from a Few Simple Prompts

The children's books that I remember the most are the ones that came with an important message. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day had a message of positivity and keeping your head up when it seemed like everything was coming crashing down around the protagonist. While

Titillating Titles

Before I wrote children’s books I worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency. I found that if I applied the formula for writing ad copy to writing picture books that writing a book wasn’t as daunting. I also believed in the KISS advertising approach – Keep It Simple Stupid.

Developing Your Book Idea

Is your story idea ready to be turned into a book?

How to Write a Plot Synopsis

There is no way around it— if you plan to submit your manuscript to publishers, you're going to have to write a plot synopsis. But many authors, even those who write long novels, cringe at the thought of summing up their plots in a few sentences. Here are some tips

Show Don’t Tell — A New Take on an Old Chestnut

Writers have heard the axiom “Show, don’t tell” repeatedly. We know the importance of including sensory detail; we know to keep long passages of narrative summaries to a minimum.

Okay. What if you’ve done all that and an editor writes back in a rejection letter, “Too much telling, not enough

Find Your Strengths as a Writer

Does your critique group laugh in all the right places when you read your humorous picture book out loud? Do they ask for more at the end of a pivotal chapter in your middle grade mystery? As you continue to work on your manuscript and get feedback, you’ll learn where

Working with Point of View

Choosing a point of view is one of the decisions you’ll need to make before you can tell your story. Most children’s books are written in one of three common viewpoints, defined in the sidebar to the right. The viewpoint is often dictated by your story and your skills as

How to “Show, Don’t Tell”

“Show, Don’t Tell” is shorthand for writing in a way that draws the reader into the story and keeps the author in the background. Here are some pointers for learning this important writing technique.

Let’s being with a definition. “Telling” uses abstract, general terms (The dog was big and scary.

Endings That Deliver

Have you ever gotten to the end of a book and thought “So what?” Did it make you want to read more by that author, or recommend the book to a friend? Satisfying endings go hand in hand with strong beginnings in framing the reader’s experience. No matter how masterfully written the rest of the story, if the ending is a letdown it overshadows everything that came before.