the writing workbench

Here's what they have to say about:

Show And Tell

But telling your readers about your character's emotions is not the best way to get your readers involved. Far better to show why our characters feel the way they do. Instead of saying "Amanda took one look at the hotel room and recoiled in disgust," describe the room in such a way that the readers feel that disgust for themselves. You don't want to give your readers information. You want to give them experiences.

Point of View

So what degree of narrative distance is right for you? Broadly speaking, the more intimate the point of view, the better. One of the most vital and difficult tasks facing a writer is creating believable and engaging characters, and an initimate point of view is a terrific way to do this. When you use your characters' language in your descriptions, you not only convey the sights and sounds about them, you also convey their history, their education, and the culture they live in, without any additional effort. If one collegiate character watches an old Mustang go by and hears a "loud motor," and another hears a "302 Windsor with Holly duals and glasspacks," an astute reader can guess at how they spent their respective high school years.

In general, keep the point of view to one character per scene and establish the point of view early.

Proportion

Reread your first fifty pages, paying attention to what you spend your time on. Are the characters you develop most fully important to the ending? Do you use the locations you develop in detail later in the story? Do any of the characters play a surprising role in the ending? Could readers guess this from the amount of time you spend on them?

Dialogue Mechanics

First, check your dialogue for explanations. As long as you have your highlighter out, mark every -ly adverb.

See How it Sounds

...you don't want your characters to speak more fully formed thoughts than they normally would... (to) get some information to your readers... So have your characters misunderstand one another once in a while. Have them answer the unspoken question rather than the one asked out loud. Have them talk at cross-purposes. Have them hedge. Disagree. Lie. It will go a long way toward making them sound human.

In general, you should always read your dialogue aloud. Avoid dialogue that sounds flat, voiceless and worse of all - formal.

Dialogue Beats

As with other forms of description, you want to give the readers enough detail to jump-start their imaginations and enough leeway for their imaginations to work. You want to define the action without overdefining it. If your dialogue is taking place over dinner, for instance, an ocassional dropped fork or sip of wine are enough to keep the readers in the scene. You don't need a description of the meal from soup to nuts.

Sophistication

One easy way to make your writing seem more sophisticated is to avoid two stylistic constructions that are common to hack writers, namely: "Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him." and: "As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him." ...This tends to place some of your action at one remove from your reader...

Your Voice

Whenever you come to a sentence or phrase that gives you a little jab of pleasure... highlight that passage in a color you like... Then go through and read aloud all the sentences you highlighted... What you've been reading aloud will represent, for now, your voice at its most effective. And making yourself conscious of it in this mechanical way will strengthen it as you continue your work.