Category: Shared Writing

REBLOG: The Sound of Silence

~ JM Williams ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been rambling about the craft over at OMAM. How do you like the new design?

Brandon Gardner's avatarOf Metal and Magic Publishing

Utilizing sensory details is a critical part of good writing. Tapping into the five senses allows a reader to go beyond just visualizing the scene to the point of feeling it for themselves. But of the five, sound is probably one of the hardest to convey.

You can get by sometimes withonomatopoeia. Providing details of what is making the sound can create subtle differences–the light clang of steel vs. the heavy clang of iron. Changing the sound word a slight bit can also do the same–the thunk of light wood vs the thud of weighted-down wood or barrels. More often than not, I find myself resorting to similes to describe certain sounds, e.g, a metal scratch like the wail of the damned.

I’ve always felt that Terry Pratchett had a wonderful sense of sound, and more significantly, a peerless skill at delivering that sense to the reader. Take these…

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REBLOG: The Impostor Syndrome

~ JM Williams ~ 4 Comments

If you want to dive deep into the darkest crevices of a writer’s mind, you should follow Irina. Many of her posts are long and thoughtful digressions on life and writing. She’s  better at explaining these sorts of things than I am.

This one hit me so hard in the feels, I needed to reblog. I’ve been feeling some heavy imposter syndrome these days (Sorry for being such a Danny Downer lately!). This is such a great way of looking at it.

I’ve had those 45-minute rants plenty of times in my professional field, but it never clicked how meaningful that is. Thanks, Irina, for sharing your insights!

Irina Slav's avatarDe-zombify

I often have internal dialogues. Sometimes they’re mostly peaceful but usually they’re highly argumentative. Yes, I often disagree with myself and I get on my nerves a lot being stubborn about stuff. Such as the impostor syndrome.

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REBLOG: Write Them Real, Write Them True

~ JM Williams ~ 7 Comments

Irina and I had a good exchange regarding this topic on my previous post. Check out this awesome continuation she posted on her blog.

I think my thoughts on the issue have changed some over the past couple years. This is probably in large part because most of the favorite characters I have written (as a male author) have been women and girls. And I tend to like female characters more in fiction (who knows, maybe this very issue causes people to be more conscious about how they write and create female leads). Of course men can write deep women characters and vice versa. And any hack writer can write shallow characters of any gender.

But I do think there are some things that are inherently foreign from one side to the other, and at a minimum, require a good amount of research before publication. I wouldn’t write a story about a Korean character (I’m pretty white as far as the ethnic spectrum goes) without having a whole lot of either experience or research (I’ve lived in Korea for 11+ years and did my master’s thesis on Korean political history). Women are the same way for me. There are some things I feel confident about because either they should be human universal traits, or because I have enough experience in my relationships to tease them out. But there are plenty of things I wouldn’t try to guess at. Morning sickness, or just the experience of being pregnant. Or the experience of dealing with the heavier burdens of living in a patriarchy. In the end though, I think seeking to understand these differences in perspective makes us better authors, and better people.

Great post, by the way! 😀

Irina Slav's avatarDe-zombify

There’s a topic that has been nagging me for quite a while, demanding attention and asking that my opinion on it be shared with the world. My usual response has been “Shut up and go sit in the corner, you’re too politicised as it is” but a recent chat with a fellow writer sort of convinced me it was possible to write about it without enraging armies or even your discussion partner. The nagging topic is about men writing female characters and, gasp, women writing male characters.

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REBLOG: The Dialogue Checklist

~ JM Williams ~ 2 Comments

I’ve written about dialogue grammar and formatting before, but K.M. Allan does a much better job here. Pay attention to the part on “action beats.” I see a lot of writers getting that wrong.

K.M. Allan's avatarK.M. Allan

Dialogue is an important part of any story and essential to get right.

Good dialogue can reveal twists, unveil character traits, motivations, change the direction of the story, and give your cliffhangers the perfect bite—I mean, who doesn’t love the final line of a scene ending in a suspenseful piece of dialogue!

While it’s up to you to perfect your dialogue, if you want to ensure it’s working for your words, double-check it with the help of this checklist!

The Rules

Use your search function to find every instance of quote marks (” or ‘), and as you look at each highlighted quote, check the following…

Spelled Out Emotions

While there’s nothing wrong with telling emotions, if you’re spelling out every single instance, use this check to shortcut your way to finding all that telling and convert some of it to showing.

Telling: “Get out!” Jenny shouted angrily.

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Share: Write a Proper Cover Letter

~ JM Williams ~ Leave a comment

This was just to good not to share. It sort of meanders in getting to the final point--which ironically, is to keep it short!--but the detailed review of cover letter mistakes is helpful, too. Thanks to Richie Billing for bringing this to my attention. ~JM via How to Write a Proper Short Story Cover Letter