In an earlier blog we discuss how one can blend narrative and dialogue. Here we expand dialog use another way by conveying emotion and thereby provide a positive emotional experience for the reader. That is the novel’s point. This is…
We have said many times in these blogs that the purpose of a novel is to provide a positive emotional experience for the reader. But, how do we do this? The story is conveyed by the characters. They are the…
I spent most of my career in science writing narrative. Only narrative, and nothing but narrative. We don’t write manuscripts with dialog in them. Scientific books that I’ve written are long tracks of narratives broken up not by dialogue, but…
Misdirection in novel writing mimics life. As the misdirected, we are led down a predictable path, the “garden” path. We believe that no on has remembered our birthday, or that our significant other has let our anniversary slip by. I…
What is a character going to do with a car bearing down on them? What will your protagonist-lawyer do when the Court sustains an objection against her. Don’t know? It’s time for imagination. There’s nothing better to solve difficult problems…
Would you become engaged and married to an unseen and unknown person based on their thousand word letter to you? Would you base a future decision on words and phrases from the past? On where somebody else has gone rather…
If you have a scenes that bores you to the point where you just don’t want to read it anymore, then you have a couple of choices. One is to get rid of it. The second is to bring something…
“A trial attorney is not a good trial attorney until they have lost a case”. A lawyer’s adage Your cannot be at your best until you have faced and absorbed defeat. Your best draft of a first novel is rejected by…
Next time that you are emptying your mind of thoughts, conduct an informal inventory. Did you find any thoughts questioning your courage? Did any of them inform you about your willingness to self-sacrifice? Did you learn about your ethical standing …
Why are novelists treated differently than the authors of scientific, technical, historical, essay, editorial, and persuasive genre? We, as novelists focus on the emotions of people reacting to their changing worlds. Those responses spark sentiments in our readers, scratching an…
